Following publications have been announced by our department Climate Extremes and Impacts. For further information please contact the linked authors and co-authors of the publications:
Yi, X., Hünicke, B., & Zorita, E. (2021): Evolution of the Arabian Sea Upwelling from the Last Millennium to the Future as Simulated by Earth System Models. Climate 2021, 9, 72, doi:10.3390/cli9050072
Abstract:
Arabian Sea upwelling in the past has been generally studied based on the sediment records. We apply two earth system models and analyze the simulated water vertical velocity to investigate coastal upwelling in the western Arabian Sea over the last millennium. In addition, two models with slightly different configurations are also employed to study the upwelling in the 21st century under the strongest and the weakest greenhouse gas emission scenarios. With a negative long-term trend caused by the orbital forcing of the models, the upwelling over the last millennium is found to be closely correlated with the sea surface temperature, the Indian summer Monsoon and the sediment records. The future upwelling under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario reveals a negative trend, in contrast with the positive trend displayed by the upwelling favorable along-shore winds. Therefore, it is likely that other factors, like water stratification in the upper ocean layers caused by the stronger surface warming, overrides the effect from the upwelling favorable wind. No significant trend is found for the upwelling under the RCP2.6 scenario, which is likely due to a compensation between the opposing effects of the increase in upwelling favorable winds and the water stratification.
Pyrina, M., Moreno-Chamarro, E., Wagner, S., & Zorita, E. (2021): Surface and Tropospheric Response of North Atlantic Summer Climate from Paleoclimate Simulations of the Past Millennium. Atmosphere 2021, 12, 568, doi:10.3390/atmos12050568
Abstract:
We investigate the effects of solar forcing on the North Atlantic (NA) summer climate, in climate simulations with Earth System Models (ESMs), over the preindustrial past millennium (AD 850–1849). We use one simulation and a four-member ensemble performed with the MPI-ESM-P and CESM-LME models, respectively, forced only by low-scaling variations in Total Solar Irradiance (TSI). We apply linear methods (correlation and regression) and composite analysis to estimate the NA surface and tropospheric climatic responses to decadal solar variability. Linear methods in the CESM ensemble indicate a weak summer response in sea-level pressure (SLP) and 500-hPa geopotential height to TSI, with decreased values over Greenland and increased values over the NA subtropics. Composite analysis indicates that, during high-TSI periods, SLP decreases over eastern Canada and the geopotential height at 500-hPa increases over the subtropical NA. The possible summer response of SSTs is overlapped by model internal variability. Therefore, for low-scaling TSI changes, state-of-the-art ESMs disagree on the NA surface climatic effect of solar forcing indicated by proxy-based studies during the preindustrial millennium. The analysis of control simulations indicates that, in all climatic variables studied, spurious patterns of apparent solar response may arise from the analysis of single model simulations.