Climate System Research Articles

Models and scenarios for solar radiation modification need to include human perceptions of risk

Abstract Solar radiation modification (SRM) is a climate intervention method that would reflect a portion of incoming solar radiation to cool the Earth and could be used to ameliorate the impacts of climate change, but that provokes strong reactions from experts and the public alike. Research has explored both the biophysical and human behavioral aspects of SRM but has not integrated these processes in a single framework. Our expectations for SRM development and deployment will be inaccurate until we integrate the feedbacks between human behavioral and cognitive processes and the biophysical and climate system. We propose a framework for describing these feedbacks and how they may mediate transitions in the development and operationalization of SRM as a climate intervention. We consider components such as public trust in SRM, moral hazard concerns, climate risk perceptions, and societal disruptions, and illustrate how the driving processes could change across the pre-development, post-development, and post-deployment phases of SRM operationalization to affect outcomes around SRM deployment and climate change. Our framework illustrates the importance of feedbacks between climate change, risk perceptions, and the human response and the necessity to integrate such feedbacks in the development of future scenarios for SRM.

Emulators of Climate Model Output

Researchers’ and decision-makers’ demand for climate information has outpaced the ability of computationally intensive Earth system models (ESMs) to provide targeted climate projections, particularly when specific output for specific needs is required. Emulators of ESMs—significantly more efficient computationally—aim to produce such information and have seen an accelerated period of development. Emulators’ latest generation greatly varies in method, complexity, requirements, and outputs. Some emulators produce only patterns of average quantities, targeting climate responses to anthropogenic forcings. Others simulate quantities at high temporal and spatial frequency, accounting for the climate system internal variability. We survey and categorize different methods; their advantages and limitations, including statistical approaches of various complexity; and machine learning methods. We discuss how a choice of emulator, based on different methods, inputs, and outputs available, might be or not be fit for purpose, for climate and sustainability science. We identify gaps and research needs informing future developments.

On Northeast Brazil Orographic Enhanced Rainfall and Monsoon Dynamics

ABSTRACTComprehensive climatologies are essential for decision making processes in regions with recurrent droughts and increasing flood risk, such as Northeast Brazil. Therefore, our work proposes an updated rainfall climatology for Northeast Brazil (1990–2020), discussing the possible role of orography and monsoon dynamics on this climate system. We used ERA5 surface‐wind and sea‐level pressure, the TOPODATA altimetry and the Brazilian gridded weather BR‐DWGD datasets. We also incorporate a statistical analysis of continental and oceanic surface winds and rainfall dynamics at the Araripe Plateau. Our work identifies multiple areas affected by orographic enhanced rainfall according to altitudes above 550 m above sea level. Two major orographic enhanced rainfall systems are identified at the Araripe Plateau and the Diamantina Plateau. Moreover, in southern Northeast Brazil, orography was noted to limit the incursion of the monsoon rainfall associated with the South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ). In addition to the SACZ, our analysis indicates that the South American Monsoon System (SAMS) has a large influence on Northeast Brazil rainfall, reversing surface‐wind fields in northern Northeast Brazil. This monsoon influence leads to the formation of the Northeast Brazil Convergence Zone (NBCZ), an atmospheric feature which we suggest occurs zonally oriented over the southern portion of the Borborema Amphitheatre near 7.5° S, between November and April. The NBCZ acts as a dynamical barrier that limits the meridional flux of moisture between northern and southern Northeast Brazil. This is especially pronounced along the Araripe Plateau. The monsoon rainfall dynamic is enhanced between February and April, coincident with the influence of the nearby ITCZ, which increases moisture availability on the northern coast. The drier period in most of Northeast Brazil occurs between May and October, when the region is under the influence of a high‐pressure system, the South Atlantic Anticyclone, which limits rainfall predominantly to the eastern coastal region.

Best Practices for Hosting Public Tours of Research Facilities

ABSTRACT Over 62,000 people have attended tours at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center of Ohio State University (Byrd Center) since 2012. The driving force behind the public tours is the Byrd Center’s Education and Outreach (E&O) Team. This team works collaboratively to showcase the 16 unique research teams that study polar, alpine, and climate systems. Over the past two decades, the E&O Team has developed a comprehensive tour program to present the work that the Byrd Center does. Through this development process, the team has honed a list of seven best practices to enhance the effectiveness of tours and manage limited resources. These practices are readily transferable to similar organizations.

Glacial retreat and climate change: insights from remote sensing technologies.

Glaciers and ice sheets, vital components of the Earth's climate system and crucial freshwater sources, are rapidly retreating under the influence of climate change. This study reviews the use of remote sensing technologies in monitoring these changes, highlighting tools like Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and satellite imagery from Landsat and MODIS. These technologies provide detailed measurements of ice dynamics, revealing substantial regional variability in ice loss, particularly in the Arctic and Antarctic. This study synthesizes recent data on glacial retreat, examines the impact of temperature increases and precipitation changes on ice melt, and assesses the consequences for freshwater availability in glacier-dependent regions. Case studies demonstrate the application of remote sensing in observing these phenomena, emphasizing the need for advancements in technology and international cooperation in research. The study concludes with a discussion on policy implications and conservation measures necessary to address the environmental challenges posed by glacial decline, advocating for strategic international agreements and local policies to mitigate the effects of global warming on glaciers.

Data fusion of ground-based GNSS, radio occultation and empirical model to predict the ionospheric peak electron density via artificial neural networks

In this work, we develop a model to predict the ionospheric peak electron density based on artificial neural network (ANN) utilizing long-term observation data from the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC) spanning from 2008 to 2018. New constraints such as the International Reference Ionosphere peak electron density results (IRI-NmF2) and vertical total electron content (VTEC) are considered. A preliminary regression analysis is performed via the random forest algorithm to assess the significance of the input parameters including year, month, day, local time, latitude, longitude, F10.7, Kp, IRI-NmF2 and VTEC. Results show that the root-mean-square error (RMSE) of predicted NmF2 validated by testing dataset is reduced from 1.739 × 105 to 1.417 × 105 el/cm3 when applying additional constraints. The aided ANN model performs better in the quiet time (with RMSE 9.433 × 104 el/cm3) than in disturbed time (1.784 × 105 el/cm3). Furthermore, the ANN predictions are compared with the original COSMIC data and ionosonde observation data. Separate discussions are conducted for different latitudes. For the COSMIC data in 2014, the RMSEs for the low-, middle- and high-latitude data are 2.728 × 105 el/cm3, 1.511 × 105 el/cm3, and 1.076 × 105 el/cm3, respectively; for the ionosonde data at different latitudes, the errors for ANN-fitted NmF2 are 3.314 × 105 el/cm3, 1.585 × 105 el/cm3, and 1.403 × 105 el/cm3, respectively. Under different solar activity conditions, the ANN model demonstrates superior prediction performance compared to the IRI model.

Rising Seas: Representations of Antarctica, Climate Change, And Sea Level Rise in U.S. Newspaper Coverage

ABSTRACT A changing Antarctica carries large implications for global climate systems and sea level rise. However, how climate change is altering Antarctica and how these changes are communicated in news media remains unclear. This article explores how Antarctica, climate change, and sea level rise are portrayed in digital print news media by conducting a content analysis of Antarctic climate coverage in seven U.S. newspapers between March 2007 and December 2022. Findings suggest that newspaper reporting of Antarctica’s changing climate is limited, and that framed coverage about Antarctica, climate change, and sea level rise primarily emphasizes scientific and ecological implications.

Enhanced Wintertime Convergence of Atmospheric and Oceanic Heat Transports in the Barents Sea Region under Present Climate Warming

A distinctive feature of the Barents Sea climate system is a suggested positive feedback in the ocean–sea ice–atmosphere system that can enhance regional climate variations. The objective of this study is to assess the effectiveness of this positive feedback for the advective heat fluxes in the winter season using the ORAS4 ocean reanalysis and ERA5 atmospheric reanalysis data for the period 1959–2017. Based on the signs of the linear trends of the oceanic heat transport, two periods were identified for the analysis: 1959–1987 and 1987–2017. Composite maps of surface wind fields indicate an increase in the effectiveness of the positive feedback in the Barents Sea region during the present period relative to the previous one. This is manifested in the strengthening of the southern winds over the southeastern part of the sea in years with the maximum oceanic heat transport and in the weakening of the northern winds over the northwestern part of the sea in years with the minimum oceanic heat transport. The convergence of the atmospheric sensible heat transport over the Barents Sea has a maximum in the lower troposphere, 1000–900 hPa. An increasing synchronization of the convergence of atmospheric and oceanic heat transports in the Barents Sea region, derived in this study, contributes to an acceleration of the local warming.

Potential for Machine Learning Emulators to Augment Regional Climate Simulations in Provision of Local Climate Change Information

Abstract High-resolution regional climate simulations provide detailed information on future climate change to support decision-making. Ensembles of simulations, including at kilometer-scale resolution, are becoming available from international coordinated initiatives, but these do not effectively sample the full range of uncertainties. Machine learning (ML) has already been used for statistical downscaling but has the potential to augment high-resolution simulations, via emulators, enabling rapid production of local climate information at a fraction of the cost. Here, we explore skill in ML-based emulators sampling a range of architectures and identify remaining scientific issues that need to be addressed before such emulators can be considered ready for application in climate services. This includes the ability to capture extremes, produce coherent multivariate predictions, account for memory in the climate system, and robustly downscale other (out of sample) global climate models. Climate expertise needs to be integrated into the development and evaluation of ML emulators, and here, we provide recommendations on validation methods. If skillful, ML emulation has implications for how we coordinate and perform regional climate simulations. We should focus on running at the highest resolution and greatest Earth system complexity affordable, to give the best representation of processes at the local scale, for subsequent training of ML emulators. Emphasis should be on sampling the full range of conditions, including high-end scenarios. Overall, ML has promise to augment our production of regional-to-local climate projection information over the next 5–10 years, and as a climate community, we need to come together to address the relevant scientific issues.

Pacific Highs: A Treasure Trove of Past Warm Climate Archives

Abstract Past ocean conditions are recorded in deep‐sea sediments, which provide opportunities to ground truth future climate change scenarios and their impacts on marine ecosystems—fundamental and urgent societal challenges. The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest ocean basin on Earth and currently holds more carbon and heat than any other ocean. Much of what we know about past conditions in the Pacific during warm climates, including times of widespread oceanic anoxia and large‐scale ecosystem turnover, is from sediment cores drilled at a handful of locations. Climate models stress the importance of the Pacific Ocean for global climate, carbon storage, ocean heat content and ocean circulation, but existing regional proxy records are insufficient to test these models. We highlight findings from a workshop centered on building consortia around shared research questions whose answers lie within ancient Pacific sediments. Coordinated international efforts are needed to (a) systematically revisit legacy deep‐sea sediment records, (b) plan expeditions to recover well‐preserved sediments from intervals of major scientific interest, and (c) explore new locations with the aim to study geological analogs of future conditions, and thus transform our understanding of Earth's life and climate systems. We argue that Pacific Highs (e.g., Shatsky Rise, Hess Rise, Mid‐Pacific Mountains, Magellan Rise) have the potential to deliver new high‐resolution carbonate‐rich sediments for paleoceanographic reconstructions. In addition to scientific discoveries, these efforts will provide opportunities to engage and train a new generation of scientific ocean drilling scientists.

Multi-objective optimization of a solar-assisted cogeneration system in hot climate: An exergoeconomic and exergoenvironmental assessment

Multi-objective optimization of a solar-assisted cogeneration system in hot climate: An exergoeconomic and exergoenvironmental assessment

Experimental study on the application of a Passive Displacement Dual Coil Cooling system in a tropical climate

Experimental study on the application of a Passive Displacement Dual Coil Cooling system in a tropical climate

Initialized Seasonal Prediction with the NCAR Models in the North American Multimodel Ensemble (NMME)

Abstract This study investigates the seasonal prediction capabilities of three models, all developed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and implemented by the University of Miami, within the North American Multimodel Ensemble (NMME) framework. All three models, Community Climate System Model, version 3 (CCSM3), CCSM4, and Community Earth System Model, version 1 (CESM1), are initialized using the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) and have a common period of 1991–2018. The models’ performance in predicting key climate variables including surface temperature, precipitation, and El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) teleconnections is assessed. The models’ prediction skill is assessed using the sign test, a robust nonparametric method for comparing forecast errors. CCSM4 succeeded CCSM3 in 2014, bringing a much more accurate representation of global temperature trends and improved prediction of precipitation extremes and 2-m temperature over land. CESM1, introduced in 2023, shows further improvement relative to CCSM4 in the prediction of sea surface temperature in the tropical Pacific and precipitation extremes over land. The improvement in precipitation prediction skill is encouraging, as this field has seen little improvement over the life of the NMME. The modeled similarity to observed ENSO teleconnection patterns of 2-m temperature is somewhat less in CESM1 than in CCSM4, although precipitation teleconnection patterns are similar. CCSM4 and CESM1 show stronger surface temperature trends in the tropical Pacific and Southern Ocean than observed trends over the same period, a common problem for current state-of-the-art climate models with implications for prediction and for climate projections. Significance Statement This study documents the improvements in seasonal climate prediction across three generations of coupled models developed by the National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and implemented within the North American Multimodel Ensemble (NMME) by the University of Miami. Model upgrades are an important aspect of the NMME and have contributed to incremental increases in forecast skill. A thorough and ongoing assessment of individual models is critical to our understanding of the NMME system’s evolution and to future model improvements.

Pathways of south-derived iodine-129 intrusion into Tibet as revealed by its spatial distribution.

Pathways of south-derived iodine-129 intrusion into Tibet as revealed by its spatial distribution.

Developing resilience through fear and optimal experience of film in an undergraduate course

Abstract Currently, climate and the environment are the focus of much dialogue within postsecondary institutions. The goal of this research was to better understand student experiences while enrolled in an undergraduate course centered on climate systems alongside food, energy, and sustainability. Specifically, the study explored the role of three primary factors on learning: optimal experience, fear, and resilience. Additional dimensions of the study included the course using film as a pedagogy and students engaging in the course both online and in‐person. The three primary factors were quantified through survey event‐contingent sampling items where students (a) have a perceived level of skill and challenge associated with an activity, (b) have experiences that quantify fear, and (c) develop ways to cope with these experiences. The purpose of this research was to explore the relationships between the three primary factors and the modality of student engagement (i.e., online or in‐person) as well as film themes. Fear was the most prevalent factor across modalities and film themes. For climate‐themed films, concerning levels of fear and low resilience were found. Based on the results, the authors recommend online and in‐person course mediation tactics that assist in increasing student resilience, especially while engaging with climate‐related content. Mediation activities may include in‐person and online structured dialogue activities and problem‐solution activities that can address current climate narratives.

A model study of the global climate sensitivity to changes in solar radiation

Abstract Simplified models of global climate have been designed over the past few years, and have showed that they are able to correctly model important aspects of the climate system. This type of models is often defined as climate models of intermediate complexity, and they have attracted the attention of numerous groups of scientists. A global zonal nonstationary energy balance climate model is proposed with a joint consideration of the northern and southern hemispheres, each with its own specific parameters, in particular, with a latitude-dependent absorption coefficient of solar radiation, set from observational data. Calculations were carried out in the mode of the real seasonal distribution of solar radiation, taking into account the albedo-temperature feedback through the introduction of the snow cover description. The impact of changes in the solar constant on the model climate is investigated. The classical result is confirmed that in this formulation, when the solar constant decreases by 4%, an avalanche-like displacement of the snow line to the equator occurs, and the Earth is completely covered with snow and ice (glaciation state). The exit from this mode occurs only when the solar constant is increased by 40.2% compared to the modern meaning. In total, the calculations were carried out for a period of about 400 years.

Climate Constellations: A Systemic Tool for Exploring Sustainability Transitions

Climate Constellations adapt systemic constellation methods from family therapy to sustainability contexts, offering an experiential way to explore complex climate system dynamics. By engaging participants physically and emotionally in representing elements of socio-ecological systems, this approach can foster transformative learning and reveal hidden leverage points for change. We implemented Climate Constellations in several settings (a university sustainability course, professional workshops, a research team session, and an informal community group) to examine how this embodied systemic inquiry might shift participants’ perspectives. Qualitative observations and participant feedback consistently indicated heightened systems awareness, empathy, and personal engagement with climate issues. While careful facilitation is required, these case studies suggest Climate Constellations can be a powerful catalyst for reflection and learning in sustainability transitions.

Comprehensive analysis of greenhouse gases emissions and microbial dynamics in glacier-fed lakes across various ablation stages.

Comprehensive analysis of greenhouse gases emissions and microbial dynamics in glacier-fed lakes across various ablation stages.

Impacts of Environmental Change and Human Activities on Aquatic Ecosystems

With the ongoing changes in the global climate system and the continuous intensification of human activities, aquatic ecosystems face unprecedented stresses from multiple sources [...]

Bumpy Road to Climate Neutrality: Why the 1.5 °C Threshold is Close and Why the Temperature Overshoot will be Long

The possible consequences of the decisions taken at the recent Conferences of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change COP26 (Glasgow 2021) and COP28 (Dubai 2023), for the world energy and future climate change are examined. A set of scenarios of anthropogenic impacts on the global climate system is proposed, including the full implementation of the Glasgow decisions on decarbonisation of the world economy, reduction of methane emissions and reforestation, as well as alternative scenarios for world energy development based on low options for changes in world population, in order to prevent dangerous global climate change. The global carbon cycle and climate models developed at MPEI have been used to simulate changes in the chemical composition and thermal radiation balance of the Earth's atmosphere, as well as the global average air temperature for each of the scenarios. It is shown that only the full implementation of the full range of measures proposed in Glasgow to reduce the anthropogenic impact on the planet's climate system, while maintaining the current growth rates in energy consumption and world population, will be able to keep warming below 1.5° C with reference to pre-industrial levels, but there are serious doubts about the practical implementation of the proposed program of decarbonisation of the world economy. At the same time, our findings suggest that the development of natural demographic processes can restrain growth and ensure a decrease in the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations even before the end of this century. In this case, the increase in global average temperature can be limited to a marginally safe level of 1.8 degrees above the pre-industrial period, without a large-scale restructuring of the world's energy sector. However, it is virtually certain that the 1.5 °C threshold will be exceeded within the next decade, and that the period of 1.5 °C temperature overshoot will last for more than a century. Already by the end of this century, global temperatures will have to be brought back down by explicitly removing carbon dioxide fr om the atmosphere: an immense task that will require a build-up of a negative-emissions economy.