Thomas Spangehl

Climate change projections and stratosphere-troposphere interaction

Climate change is expected to increase winter rainfall and flooding in many extratropical regions as evaporation and precipitation rates increase, storms become more intense and storm tracks move polewards. Here, we show how changes in stratospheric circulation could play a significant role in future climate change in the extratropics through an additional shift in the tropospheric circulation. This shift in the circulation alters climate change in regional winter rainfall by an amount large enough to significantly alter regional climate change projections. The changes are consistent with changes in stratospheric winds inducing a change in the baroclinic eddy growth rate across the depth of the troposphere. A change in mean wind structure and an equatorward shift of the tropospheric storm tracks relative to models with poor stratospheric resolution allows coupling with surface climate. Using the Atlantic storm track as an example, we show how this can double the predicted increase in extreme winter rainfall over Western and Central Europe compared to other current climate projections.

Ensemble climate simulations using a fully coupled ocean-troposphere-stratosphere general circulation model

Long-term transient simulations are carried out in an initial condition ensemble mode using a global coupled climate model which includes comprehensive ocean and stratosphere components. This model, which is run for the years 1860–2100, allows the investigation of the troposphere–stratosphere interactions and the importance of representing the middle atmosphere in climate-change simulations. The model simulates the present-day climate (1961–2000) realistically in the troposphere, stratosphere and ocean. The enhanced stratospheric resolution leads to the simulation of sudden stratospheric warmings; however, their frequency is underestimated by a factor of 2 with respect to observations. In projections of the future climate using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report on emissions scenarios A2, an increased tropospheric wave forcing counteracts the radiative cooling in the middle atmosphere caused by the enhanced greenhouse gas concentration. This leads to a more dynamically active, warmer stratosphere compared with present-day simulations, and to the doubling of the number of stratospheric warmings. The associated changes in the mean zonal wind patterns lead to a southward displacement of the Northern Hemisphere storm track in the climate-change signal.

The Surface Climate Response to 11-Yr Solar Forcing during Northern Winter : Observational Analyses and Comparisons with GCM Simulations

This work was supported under Grant AGS-1067827 from the Climate Dynamics Branch of the U.S. National Science Foundation and under Grant NNX10AQ63G from the NASA Living With a Star Targeted Research and Technology Program.

Shifts of climate zones in multi-model climate change experiments using the Köppen climate classification

This study investigates the future changes in the climate zones’ distribution of the Earth’s land area due to increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations in three IPCC SRES emissions scenarios (A1B, A2 and B1). The Köppen climate classif cation is applied to climate simulations of seven atmosphereocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) and their multi-model mean. The evaluation of the skill of the individual climate models compared to an observation-reanalysis-based climate classif cation provides a f rst order estimate of relevant model uncertainties and serves as assessment for the conf dence in the scenario projections. Uncertainties related to differences in simulation pathways of the future projections are estimated by both, the multi-model ensemble spread of the climate change signals for a given scenario and differences between different scenarios. For the recent climate the individual models fail to capture the exact Köppen climate types in about 24–39 % of the global land area excluding Antarctica due to temperature and precipitation biases, while the multi-model ensemble mean simulates the present day observation-reanalysisbased distribution of the climate types more accurately. For the end of the 21 century compared to the present day climate the patterns of change are similar across the three scenarios, while the magnitude of change is largest for the highest emission scenario. Moreover, the temporal development of the climate shifts from the end of the 20st century and during the 21 century show that changes of the multi-model ensemble mean for the A2 and B1 scenario are generally within the ensemble spread of the individual models for the A1B scenario, illustrating that for the given range of scenarios the model uncertainty is even larger than the spread given by the different GHG concentration pathways.The multi-model ensemble mean’s projections show climate shifts to dryer climates in the subtropics (Australia, Mediterranean Basin, southern Africa). This is consistent with an increase of area classif ed as Tropical Savanna Climate as well as Dry Climates. Furthermore, there is a poleward extension of the warmer climate types in the northern hemisphere causing a retreat of regions with Cold Climate with Moist Winter and Tundra Climate. The European region shows largest changes comparing the shifts in the different continents (37.1 % of the European land area) as a result of a large extension of the Humid Temperate Climate across eastern and north-eastern Europe at the cost of the Cold Climate with Moist Winter.

Solar effects on Chemistry and Climate including Ocean Interactions

In the Project on Solar Effects on Chemistry and Climate Including Ocean Interactions (ProSECCO) fundamental questions of the impact of solar variability on Earth have been investigated with improved climate system models and observations. On the decadal time scale, the atmospheric signature of the 11-year Schwabe cycle and the underlying mechanisms have been studied. This included the impact of variations in UV radiation and particle precipitation on stratospheric chemistry and ozone, as well as on the solar signal in the troposphere and on climate. On the centennial to millennium time scale, effects of solar variability on climate of different pre-industrial periods, focusing on the Maunder Minimum and the mid-Holocene, have been addressed.

Variable influence on the equatorial troposphere associated with SSW using ERA-Interim

Sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events are identified to investigate their influence on the equatorial tropospheric climate. Composite analysis of warming events from Era-Interim (1979–2013) record a cooling of the tropical lower stratosphere with corresponding changes in the mean meridional stratospheric circulation. A cooling of the upper troposphere induces enhanced convective activity near the equatorial region of the Southern Hemisphere and suppressed convective activity in the off-equatorial Northern Hemisphere. After selecting vortex splits, the see-saw pattern of convective activity in the troposphere grows prominent and robust.

Enhanced residual mean circulation during the evolution of split type sudden stratospheric warming in observations and model simulations

Residual mean circulation changes during the evolution of sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) are investigated by composite analyses of 76 major warming events identified in a present day simulation performed with a coupled ocean–troposphere–stratosphere model from 299 winters. Their dynamical signatures are compared with the 17 SSW events identified from 35 years of Era-Interim data. The main difference is that, relative frequency of simulated SSW events is smaller than that obtained from reanalysis. SSW events are classified as displacement or split events based on the geopotential field values at 10 hPa. The geopotential field values identify 10 and 3 split events in simulation and observation respectively. The model quite accurately simulates some of the dynamical features associated with the major SSW. Residual mean circulation induced by EP-flux divergence, sum of advection and residual forcing are stronger in split events than in displacement type SSW has been confirmed by both simulation and observation. Moreover, the contribution of EP-flux divergence or planetary wave forcing is larger than the contribution of other types of forcing.