Oliver W. Frauenfeld

Spatial and temporal variability in active layer thickness over the Russian Arctic drainage basin

[1]xa0Changes in active layer thickness (ALT) over northern high-latitude permafrost regions have important impacts on the surface energy balance, hydrologic cycle, carbon exchange between the atmosphere and the land surface, plant growth, and ecosystems as a whole. This study examines the 20th century variations of ALT for the Ob, Yenisey, and Lena River basins. ALT is estimated from historical soil temperature measurements from 17 stations (1956–1990, Lena basin only), an annual thawing index based on both surface air temperature data (1901–2002) and numerical modeling (1980–2002). The latter two provide spatial fields. Based on the thawing index, the long-term average (1961–1990) ALT is about 1.87 m in the Ob, 1.67 in the Yenisey, and 1.69 m in the Lena basin. Over the past several decades, ALT over the three basins shows positive trends, but with different magnitudes. Based on the 17 stations, ALT increased about 0.32 m between 1956 and 1990 in the Lena. To the extent that results based on the soil temperatures represent ground “truth,” ALT obtained from both the thawing index and numerical modeling is underestimated. It is widely believed that ALT will increase with global warming. However, this hypothesis needs further refinement since ALT responds primarily to summer air temperature while observed warming has occurred mainly in winter and spring. It is also shown that ALT exhibits complex and inconsistent responses to variations in snow cover.

Interdecadal changes in seasonal freeze and thaw depths in Russia

[1]xa0Seasonal freezing and thawing processes in cold regions play a major role in ecosystem diversity, productivity, and the Arctic hydrological system. Long-term changes in seasonal freeze and thaw depths are also important indicators of climate change. Only sparse historical measurements of seasonal freeze and thaw depths are available for permafrost and seasonally frozen ground regions. Using mean monthly soil temperature data for 1930–1990 for 242 stations located throughout Russia, we employed a linear interpolation method to determine the depth of the 0°C isotherm based on soil temperature data measured between 0.2 m and 3.2 m depth. The relationship between available observed annual maximum freeze and thaw depths and our interpolated values indicates a perfect correlation. A comprehensive evaluation of long-term trends in these new interpolated data for Russia indicates that in permafrost regions, active layer depths have been steadily increasing. In the period 1956–1990 the active layer exhibited a statistically significant deepening by approximately 20 cm. The changes in the seasonally frozen ground areas are even greater: The depth of the freezing layer decreased 34 cm between 1956 and 1990. Potential forcings of the observed changes include air temperature, freezing and thawing index, and snow depth. Correlation and multiple regression reveal that active layer depth is most strongly related to snow depth. Air temperature, both mean annual and thawing index, is also significantly related to changes in the active layer. Freeze depth is influenced most strongly by the freezing index and mean annual air temperature, although snow depth is also a significant contributor. Air temperature and snow depth have been changing less in the seasonally frozen ground regions of Russia compared to permafrost regions, although observed changes in freeze depth are greater than changes in active layer depth for 1930–1990. This indicates that the seasonally frozen ground regions of the Russian high latitudes are more susceptible to climate change than the Russian permafrost. However, as temperatures have been rising, especially in the high-latitude continental regions, both permafrost and seasonally frozen ground regions are being greatly impacted. These changes can potentially result in increased river runoff and changes in discharge throughout the Russian Arctic drainage basin, as well as changes in high-latitude ecosystems.

Impacts of land use/land cover change on climate and future research priorities.

Several recommendations have been proposed for detecting land use and land cover change (LULCC) on the environment from, observed climatic records and to modeling to improve its understanding and its impacts on climate. Researchers need to detect LULCCs accurately at appropriate scales within a specified time period to better understand their impacts on climate and provide improved estimates of future climate. The US Climate Reference Network (USCRN) can be helpful in monitoring impacts of LULCC on near-surface atmospheric conditions, including temperature. The USCRN measures temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, and ground or skin temperature. It is recommended that the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and other climate monitoring agencies develop plans and seek funds to address any monitoring biases that are identified and for which detailed analyses have not been completed.

Climate change and variability using European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts reanalysis (ERA‐40) temperatures on the Tibetan Plateau

[1]xa0Surface air temperature measurements from meteorological stations on the Tibetan Plateau are compared to 2-m temperatures from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis (ERA-40) to assess the accuracy of this reanalysis product. We focus on ERA-40 grid cells containing at least four stations. The reanalysis temperatures are consistently lower, by as much as 7°C. However, temporal correlations are high, indicating that ERA-40 captures the interannual variability very well. The temperature bias is almost exclusively due to differences between the grid cell and the station elevations. We conclude that the ERA-40 temperatures provide better spatial fields of temperature than is possible with stations in this topographically complex, data-sparse area. Using this spatially and temporally continuous data set, we provide a temperature climatology and assess long-term climate trends. The high elevations of the western plateau are generally 10°C cooler than the eastern plateau. During winter, 2-m temperatures are below 0°C on the entire plateau, with summer values of only 0°C in the west and 10°C in the east. While station records point to a long-term climate warming trend, no trends are observed in ERA-40. This could be due to inadequacies of the reanalysis data, although we see no evidence of anomalous nonclimatic shifts. The significant trends in station data may reflect the extensive land use change and industrialization that has occurred on the Tibetan Plateau. Reanalysis data are less influenced by these local effects.

Evaluation of precipitation from the ERA-40, NCEP-1, and NCEP-2 Reanalyses and CMAP-1, CMAP-2, and GPCP-2 with ground-based measurements in China

[1]xa0We assess the correspondence between precipitation products from atmospheric reanalyses (ERA-40, NCEP-1, and NCEP-2), the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Merged Analyses of Precipitation (CMAP-1 and CMAP-2), and the Global Precipitation Climatology Project Version 2 (GPCP-2) with adjusted observational precipitation (AOP) from China for 1979–2001 and also for ERA-40 and NCEP-1 over 1958–1978. In general, we conclude that CMAP-1 and GPCP-2 agree more closely with AOP than the reanalysis products do, although ERA-40 data agree more closely with AOP than NCEP data. The percentages of precipitation differences (PPDs) across China between annual ERA-40, NCEP-1, NCEP-2, CMAP-1, CMAP-2, and GPCP-2 data and AOP are −12, 22, 14, −8, −7, and −15%, respectively, for 1979–2001. Although relatively small biases are evident for China as a whole, maximum PPDs, usually occurring around the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, can exceed 1000%, indicating a strong terrain dependence of gridded precipitation data. GPCP-2, although characterized by greater underestimation for most of China compared with CMAP-1, exhibits a smaller biases range and hence may be better than CMAP-1. Compared with the NCEP-1 system, NCEP-2 represents an improvement as NCEP-2 precipitation agrees more closely with AOP than NCEP-1 data. However, the coherence of NCEP-2 precipitation needs further improvement. In addition, we find worse consistency and accuracy and larger positive biases in some parts of China for CMAP-2 versus CMAP-1, illustrating an advantage of including reanalysis data in CMAP, as CMAP-1 does. CMAP-1 could be further improved if they used the more skillful ERA-40 precipitation instead of the NCEP/NCAR data.

Evaluation of ERA‐40, NCEP‐1, and NCEP‐2 reanalysis air temperatures with ground‐based measurements in China

[1]xa0We assess the correspondence of reanalysis air temperatures from ERA-40, NCEP-1, and NCEP-2 with homogenized observational data from China for 1958–2001 and 1979–2001. Results indicate that climatologies for annual ERA-40, NCEP-1, and NCEP-2 air temperatures are lower than observations by −0.93°C, −2.78°C, and −2.27°C, respectively. Large negative differences for most of western China primarily contribute to this cool bias. Error analysis indicates that the internal coherence of ERA-40 data is better than NCEP-1 or NCEP-2. Although NCEP-2 air temperatures represent an improvement over NCEP-1, biases of NCEP-1 and NCEP-2 data relative to observations are still much larger than for ERA-40. Areas with positive/negative air temperature differences (dT) between reanalysis and observational data correspond to negative/positive elevation differences (dH). The high correlation coefficients of −0.94, −0.88, and −0.85 between dT and dH for ERA-40, NCEP-1, NCEP-2, and observations, respectively, illustrate that the air temperature differences between reanalysis data and observations are primarily related to elevation differences. Furthermore, a spatial and temporal comparison of trends also indicates that ERA-40 temperature changes correspond most closely to observed trends in China. In general, our comprehensive analysis of the three global reanalysis products indicates that, both on a seasonal and annual basis, ERA-40 temperatures correspond most closely to observations, and biases are due mainly to the elevation differences.

A comprehensive evaluation of precipitation simulations over China based on CMIP5 multimodel ensemble projections

Precipitation variability has great economic, social, and environmental impacts across the globe, and in particular in China. This paper evaluates the historical precipitation variability based on 20 general circulation models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) archive over the 20th century relative to two observational data sets and quantifies CMIP5 improvements over CMIP3. Multimodel ensemble means and individual models are assessed. Three future emission scenarios are used (representative concentration pathways (RCP) 8.5, RCP 4.5, and RCP 2.6), and 21st century CMIP5 estimates are put into context based on the 20th century biases. We find that CMIP5 models can reproduce the spatial pattern of precipitation over China during the 20th century, which represents an improvement over CMIP3. However, the models overestimate the magnitude of seasonal and annual precipitation in most regions of China, especially along the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, and underestimate summer precipitation over southeastern China. For China as a whole, CMIP5s overestimation of annual precipitation is greater than CMIP3, which can be traced back to a greater underestimation of summer precipitation in CMIP3. There is a large spread among individual models, with the greatest uncertainties in simulating summer precipitation. Trends and correlations also suggest a better agreement of CMIP5 with observations than CMIP3. Throughout the 20th century, both the observations and models show an increasing trend in precipitation over parts of northwestern China and a decreasing trend over the Tibetan Plateau. There is poor agreement in precipitation trends over the southeast and northeast regions. In general, multimodel means cannot capture the amplitude of observed multidecadal precipitation variability. In the 21st century, precipitation is generally projected to increase across all of China under all three scenarios. RCP 8.5 exhibits the largest significant trend at a rate of +1.5 mm/yr, corresponding to 16% precipitation increase by the end of the century. The RCP 2.6 scenario shows the smallest increases, at +0.5 mm/yr (6%) by 2100. The greatest increases are projected to occur over the Tibetan Plateau and eastern China in summer, suggesting an altered monsoonal circulation in the future. However, due to the uncertainties in CMIP5, future precipitation projections should be interpreted with caution.

Northern Hemisphere circumpolar vortex trends and climate change implications

[1]xa0Trends in the Northern Hemisphere circumpolar vortex at 700, 500, and 300 hPa are examined to assess the relationship between circulation variability and air temperature. A vortex climatology is developed for the period 1949–2000. At each pressure level, three geopotential height contours are used to quantify the size and position of the vortex at 5° longitude resolution within and both north and south of the primary hemispheric baroclinic zone. This combination of spatial specificity and the long temporal record makes this the most comprehensive vortex climatology to date. The overall and seasonal vortex time series for the Northern Hemisphere are created for northern, middle, and southern contours at each of the three levels in the atmosphere. From the beginning of the record until 1970, the vortex exhibits a statistically significant expansion, but the vortex has been contracting significantly since then at all levels. The pre-1970 expansion and subsequent contraction is strongest in the lower latitudes and weakest in the higher latitudes. The trends are also stronger in the upper troposphere than in the lower troposphere. Spatial examination of the vortex indicates that the pre-1970 expansion and post-1970 contraction were driven primarily by expansion/contraction over Asia, Europe, and North America with little change over the Northern Hemisphere oceans. Although significant climate change debate focuses on the discrepancy between positive trends in surface air temperature and little or no trends in Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) satellite temperatures, contraction of the circumpolar vortex at every level of the atmosphere implies that the atmosphere is warming at depth since 1970. Comparisons with the MSU temperature history indicate that the Northern Hemisphere circulation as a whole, as represented by the circumpolar vortex, accounts for almost two thirds of the interannual variability in midlatitude MSU temperature, indicating that vortex size and position are coupled strongly to atmospheric temperature and could be a good indicator of climate change. On a latitude-by-latitude and level-by-level basis, the lower latitudes are associated most strongly with MSU temperature in the midtroposphere while the middle and higher latitudes are more closely associated with MSU temperature in the upper troposphere. The vortex trends are also similar to observed surface warming trends.

Surface Air Temperature Changes over the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries in China Simulated by 20 CMIP5 Models

AbstractHistorical temperature variability over China during the twentieth century and projected changes under three emission scenarios for the twenty-first century are evaluated on the basis of a multimodel ensemble of 20 GCMs from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) and two observational datasets. Changes relative to phase 3 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3) are assessed, and the performance of individual GCMs is also quantified. Compared with observations, GCMs have substantial cold biases over the Tibetan Plateau, especially in the cold season. The timing and location of these biases also correspond to the greatest disagreement among the individual models, indicating GCMs’ limitations in reproducing climatic features in this complex terrain. The CMIP5 multimodel ensemble shows better agreement with observations than CMIP3 in terms of the temperature biases. Both CMIP3 and CMIP5 capture the climatic warming over the twentieth century. However, the magnitude o...

Relationship between air and soil temperature trends and periodicities in the permafrost regions of Russia

[1]xa0Soil temperature is an important indicator of frozen ground status, driven at least partly by air temperature variability. In this study we apply singular spectrum analysis (SSA) to detect trends and oscillations in annual and seasonal time series of surface air temperature (SAT) and soil temperature (ST). We investigate soil temperatures at depths of 0.4, 1.6, and 3.2 m for five permafrost-occupied regions in Russia. We use SAT data for 1902–1995 and ST data for 1960–1990. The trends show an increase in annual SAT and ST from the end of the 1960s across all five regions, and this warming exceeds that of the preceding period in the Central Siberian Plateau and Transbaikalia. Oscillations in annual SAT and ST time series are coincident in the West Siberian Plain (7.7 year period) and in the western Central Siberian Plateau and Transbaikalia (2.7 year period). In general, on a seasonal basis, 2–3 year oscillations in ST and SAT are coincident during winter, spring, and autumn across the regions and are also evident in the annual ST time series in the Central Siberian Plateau and Transbaikalia. We also find a decadal oscillation (9.8 year period), which is coincident for winter SAT and ST, over the western Central Siberian Plateau only. Although summer SAT and ST oscillations (5–8 year periods) are coincident for all investigated territories (except to the east of the Lena River), in the annual ST time series they are identified only for the West Siberian Plain. We document the degree to which SAT controls ST in each region and explore the causative factors for some of the dominant periods. The maximum effect of SAT increases on permafrost may be observed in the Central Siberian Plateau and Transbaikalia, while elsewhere the observed ST increases do not threaten permafrost areas.