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This paper aims to better understand why there was a global warming pause in 2000–2015 and why the global mean surface temperature (GMST) has risen again in recent years. We present and statistically analyze substantial time-series observed datasets of global lower-stratospheric temperature (GLST), troposphere–stratosphere temperature climatology, global land surface air temperature, GMST, sea ice extent (SIE) and snow cover extent (SCE), combined with modeled calculations of GLSTs and GMSTs. The observed and analyzed results show that GLST/SCE has stabilized since the mid-1990s with no significant change over the past two and a half decades. Upper-stratospheric warming at high latitudes has been observed and GMST or global land surface air temperature has reached a plateau since the mid-2000s with the removal of natural effects. In marked contrast, continued drastic warmings at the coasts of polar regions (particularly Russia and Alaska) are observed and well explained by the sea-ice-loss warming amplification mechanism. The calculated GMSTs by the parameter-free quantum-physics warming model of halogenated greenhouse gases (GHGs) show excellent agreement with the observed GMSTs after the natural El Niño southern oscillation and volcanic effects are removed. These results have provided strong evidence for the dominant warming mechanism of anthropogenic halogenated GHGs. The results also call for closer scrutiny of the assumptions made in current climate models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show that the projected global temperature change from CMIP5 models is remarkably similar to that obtained using simple regression models relating the global temperature to the atmospheric concentrations of CO2. This result is strengthened when we consider the projections obtained using the CMIP6 models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of different primary energy sources in human society has led to two major polluting emissions in the environment: energy (mostly heat), and chemical substances (mostly carbon dioxide). In this paper, a new approach, based on the similarity between sensible heat and CO2 transfer properties, was used to determine the effect of anthropogenic heat release on the global air temperature. The total global anthropogenic emissions of sensible heat were divided into two separate streams: directly transferred to: (1) water and land, and (2) to the atmosphere. The direct emissions of heat to the atmosphere during the industrial era (years 1850-2018) were determined and their effect on the change of global atmospheric temperature was calculated. The global atmospheric temperature increase caused by anthropogenic heat emissions was estimated. The resulting calculations showed that at least half of the actual atmospheric temperature rise recorded during the last 170-year period, was due to the anthropogenic heat release. These results suggest that the temperature change of the atmosphere (global warming) is strongly affected by anthropogenic heat emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a research about the use of tree rings in providing information about the amount of snow or rainfall. It references a study by Kerstin Treydte and colleagues published within the issue. They concluded that the latter part of the twentieth century was by far the wettest period, suggesting that humans may play a role in the climate of the world.

The changes and oscillations in air temperature during the second half of the 20th and in the early 21st century, have become one of the major concerns of almost all scientific disciplines. Such changes are noticeable both at the local and global level. The objective of this paper is to point out that the changes of this climate element can also be detected at the local level. The research underlying this paper is, in terms of territory, limited to the Sokobanja basin in Eastern Serbia. The analysis relies on the data on air temperature for the period 1946-2012 taken from the Meteorological weather station located in Sokobanja. The obtained data were processed in line with the recommendations of the World Meteorological Organization. The evidenced statistically significant changes in air temperature were examined using the following statistical tests: Pettit test, Standard Normal Homogeneity test, Buishand range test, and von Neumann test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Northeast China is one of typical regions experiencing intensive human activities within short time worldwide. Particularly, as the significant changes of agriculture land and forest, typical characteristics of pattern and process of agroforestry ecotone change formed in recent decades. The intensive land use change of agroforestry ecotone has made significant change for regional land cover, which had significant impact on the regional climate system elements and the interactions among them. This paper took agroforestry ecotone of Nenjiang River Basin in China as study region and simulated temperature change based on land cover change from 1950s to 1978 and from 1978 to 2010. The analysis of temperature difference sensitivity to land cover change based on Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model showed that the land cover change from 1950s to 1978 induced warming effect over all the study area, including the change of grassland to agriculture land, grassland to deciduous broad-leaved forest, and deciduous broad-leaved forest to shrub land. The land cover change from 1978 to 2010 induced cooling effect over all the study area, including the change of deciduous broad-leaved forest to agriculture land, grassland to agriculture land, shrub land to agriculture land, and deciduous broad-leaved forest to grassland. In addition, the warming and cooling effect of land cover change was more significant in the region scale than specific land cover change area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the interpretation and definition of quantities relating to climate sensitivity in the discussions paper "Climate sensitivity in the Anthropocene," by M. Previdi and colleagues. It states that the paper brought several errors and inconsistencies in the discussion of climate sensitivity. It says that definition of temperature which denoted surface temperature was inconsistent.

The South Shetland Islands are located at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) which is among the fastest warming regions on Earth. Surface air temperature increases (~3 K in 50 years) are concurrent with retreating glacier fronts, an increase in melt areas, ice surface lowering and rapid break-up and disintegration of ice shelves. We have compiled a unique meteorological dataset for the King George Island (KGI)/Isla 25 de Mayo, the largest of the South Shetland Islands. It comprises high-temporal resolution and spatially distributed observations of surface air temperature, wind directions and wind velocities, glacier ice temperatures in profile with a fully equipped automatic weather station as well as snow accumulation and ablation measurements on the Warszawa Icefield, since November 2010 and ongoing. In combination with long-term synoptic datasets (40 and 10 years, respectively) and atmospheric circulation indices datasets, we have looked at changes in the climatological drivers of the glacial melt processes, and the sensitivity of the inland ice cap with regard to winter melting periods and pressure anomalies. The analysis has revealed a positive trend of 5 K over four decades in minimum surface air temperatures for winter months, clearly exceeding the published annual mean statistics, associated to a negative trend in mean monthly winter sea level pressure. This concurs with a positive trend in the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) index, which gives a measure for the strength and extension of the Antarctic vortex. We connect this trend with a higher frequency of low-pressure systems hitting the South Shetland Islands during austral winter, bringing warm and moist air masses from lower latitudes. A revision of spatial and seasonal changes in adiabatic air temperature lapse rates reveals the high sensitivity of the upper ice cap to free atmospheric flow and synoptic changes. Observed surface air temperature lapse rates show a high variability during winter months (standard deviations up to ±1.0 K/100 m), and a distinct spatial variability reflecting the impact of synoptic weather patterns especially during winter glacial mass accumulation periods. The increased mesocyclonic activity during the winter time in the study area results in intensified advection of warm, moist air with high temperatures and rain, and leads to melt conditions on the ice cap, fixating surface air temperatures to the melting point. This paper assesses the impact of long-term change in large-scale atmospheric circulation and variability and climatic changes on the atmospheric surface layer and glacier mass accumulation of the upper ice cap during winter season for the Warszawa Icefield on KGI. Supplementary data are available at http://dx.doi.org /10.1594/PANGAEA.848704 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interpretation of changes of global temperature is important for our understanding of the climate system and for our confidence in projections for the future. Massive efforts have been devoted to improve the accuracy of reproducing the global temperature by the available climate models, but the hindcasts are still inaccurate. Notwithstanding the need to further advance climate models, one may consider data-driven approaches, providing practically useful results in a simpler and faster way. Without assuming any prior knowledge about physics and without imposing a model structure that encapsulates the existing knowledge about the underlying processes, we hindcast global temperature by automatically identified evolutionary computation models. We use 60 years of records of global temperature and climate drivers, with training and testing periods being 1950-1999 and 2000-2009, respectively. This paper demonstrates that the global temperature observed in the past is mimicked with reasonably good accuracy. Evolutionary computation holds promise for modeling the global climate system, which looks hopelessly complex in classical perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we have provided an overview of cosmic ray effects on terrestrial processes such as electrical properties, global electric circuit, lightning, cloud formation, cloud coverage, atmospheric temperature, space weather phenomena, climate, etc. It is suggested that cosmic rays control short-term and long-term variations in climate. There are many basic phenomena which need further study and require new and long-term data set. Some of these have been pointed out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meteorological and oceanographic data from ships of opportunity are the largest contributor to the world’s ocean surface database and thus are extensively used to estimate the change in climatic properties over the world’s oceans during the previous 150 years. The importance of these data for climate change studies underscores the need to fully understand the error associated with averages of these data. The sampling error problem is especially acute for ship data due to the fact that ships are moving platforms and, thus, report observations from constantly varying locations with time. This paper develops a theoretical framework for assessing the averaged sampling error associated with monthly, 1°×1° latitude-longitude box averaged ship data. It should be noted that the time-space distribution of ships within the averaging domain strongly affects the sampling error. This is shown in our derivation. The framework developed here can be used to improve upon existing methods for estimating the sampling error associated with three-dimensional box averages of meteorological and oceanographic data obtained from ship records. The framework is complimentary to existing methods of assessing biases and random error due to instrumentation, recording, etc. It is demonstrated mathematically that the uncertainty due to incomplete sampling is primarily a trade off between of the number of observations and their relative locations within the box as well as the inherent time-space correlation structure of the variable of interest. This work differs from other studies in that the three-dimensional interdependence of data is taken into account in deriving an expression for the sampling error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The natural resources of the Okavango Delta, a large wetland in semi-arid Botswana, form the basis of livelihoods of the local population and support economically important high-end tourism. The hydro-ecological system is dynamic at various time scales, responding to climate variability, and both flood and drought conditions have in the past put pressure on the system's users. Human-induced climate change can potentially exacerbate the effects of existing climate variability. In this paper, we present simulated future hydro-ecological conditions in the Okavango Delta generated by a step-wise modelling procedure. The outputs of three different global climate models are used to drive a suite of hydrological models. Lastly, a rule-based dynamic model relates hydroperiod conditions to vegetation assemblages. The simulated future conditions vary from much drier to much wetter than those recorded in the past. Models indicate that climatic change would result in change in both extent and distribution of the major ecotopes of the Okavango Delta. Importantly, the different ecotopes will be affected to varying degrees. The projected changes will have consequences for the wildlife-based management of the system. They will affect, for example, available grazing and migration/movement patterns of large herbivores, as well as fish. Such consequences can have rapid up-trophic level effects, ultimately leading to potentially substantial impacts on the economy. The main conclusion to be drawn is that management planning and land-use systems should be as flexible as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the abrupt increase in the oceanic and atmospheric temperature in the Northern Hemisphere at the beginning of the Holocene, approximately 11 000 yr before the present. De Boer and Nof hypothesized that, at that time, the Bering Strait (BS) opened up abruptly because of the breakup of an ice dam (by rising sea levels). It is proposed further here that this sudden opening caused an abrupt increase in the mean temperature of the Northern Hemisphere. An analytical, coupled ocean–atmosphere model is applied to the North Atlantic in an attempt to quantify the temperature change resulting from the opening of the BS. Heat, salt, and mass are all conserved within a box in the North Atlantic. A convection condition allows water to enter the deep layer and the island rule relates the wind field to the mass fluxes. The conventional approach that the meridional overturning cell (MOC) was not operating during the Younger Dryas because of an overwhelming freshwater flux is adopted here. Opening the BS in the early Holocene allowed these freshwater anomalies to be flushed out into the Pacific, reviving convection and the transport of heat northward. Restarting convection with an open BS increases mean oceanic and atmospheric temperature by 3° and 23°C, respectively. These values are comparable to those found in both the Centre Européen de Recherche et d’Enseignement des Géosciences de l’Environnement (CEREGE) alkenone and Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP 2) ice core records. Of course, restarting convection increases the temperature even with a closed BS, but in the closed BS case the oceanic increase is slightly higher (4°C instead of 3°C), whereas the atmospheric is much lower (17.5°C instead of 23°C). This is because, by requiring a continuous sea level around the Americas, an open BS allows the wind field to limit the amount of Southern Ocean water that enters the South Atlantic. This controlled volume flux (8 Sv) is considerably smaller than that allowed into the Atlantic in the no-wind control closed BS case (17 Sv). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a dynamic framework for an atmospheric general circulation spectral model in which a reference stratified atmospheric temperature and a reference surface pressure are introduced into the governing equations so as to improve the calculation of the pressure gradient force and gradients of surface pressure and temperature. The vertical profile of the reference atmospheric temperature approximately corresponds to that of the U.S. midlatitude standard atmosphere within the troposphere and stratosphere, and the reference surface pressure is a function of surface terrain geopotential and is close to the observed mean surface pressure. Prognostic variables for the temperature and surface pressure are replaced by their perturbations from the prescribed references. The numerical algorithms of the explicit time difference scheme for vorticity and the semi-implicit time difference scheme for divergence, perturbation temperature, and perturbation surface pressure equation are given in detail. The modified numerical framework is implemented in the Community Atmosphere Model version 3 (CAM3) developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) to test its validation and impact on simulated climate. Both the original and the modified models are run with the same spectral resolution (T42), the same physical parameterizations, and the same boundary conditions corresponding to the observed monthly mean sea surface temperature and sea ice concentration from 1971 to 2000. This permits one to evaluate the performance of the new dynamic framework compared to the commonly used one. Results show that there is a general improvement for the simulated climate at regional and global scales, especially for temperature and wind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Near-ground observations of an atmospheric temperature interface in the stable nocturnal boundary layer are reported. The thermal effect of the interface passage was a 5-K decrease in temperature during a 5-min period in which changes in wind speed and wind direction were also observed. The interface is of unknown origin and horizontal and vertical scale. A 32-Hz time series of temperature measured with a sonic anemometer–thermometer at 1.5 m above ground level revealed a sharp, nonintermittent decrease in temperature (∼1 K s-1) nested within a more gradual, intermittent decrease (∼1 K min-1). A first attempt to extricate this subtle feature with regard to the relevant physics of generalized density currents is presented. It is shown that a very similar feature has been observed in the literature, but not interpreted for its physical significance. The contribution of this paper is its unique interpretation of the high-resolution temperature time series as it corresponds to the finescale physical character of an interface of density or temperature, and the motion of such an interface along the ground. Parameters of interest, including a spatial temperature gradient normal to the interface (∼1 K m-1), an interfacial thickness (2.8 m), and a thermal boundary layer for the interface (288 m), are calculated. Additionally, theoretical and empirical arguments are presented for a viscous suppression of turbulent mixing in the immediate vicinity of an interface of density or temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncertainties in observed records of atmospheric temperature aloft remain poorly quantified. This has resulted in considerable controversy regarding signals of climate change over recent decades from temperature records of radiosondes and satellites. This work revisits the problems associated with the removal of inhomogeneities from the historical radiosonde temperature records, and provides a method for quantifying uncertainty in an adjusted radiosonde climate record due to the subjective choices made during the data homogenization. This paper presents an automated homogenization method designed to replicate the decisions made by manual judgment in the generation of an earlier radiosonde dataset [i.e., the Hadley Centre radiosonde temperature dataset (HadAT)]. A number of validation experiments have been conducted to test the system performance and impact on linear trends. Using climate model data to simulate biased radiosonde data, the authors show that limitations in the homogenization method are sufficiently large to explain much of the tropical trend discrepancy between HadAT and estimates from satellite platforms and climate models. This situation arises from the combination of systematic (unknown magnitude) and random uncertainties (of order 0.05 K decade-1) in the radiosonde data. Previous assessment of trends and uncertainty in HadAT is likely to have underestimated the systematic bias in tropical mean temperature trends. This objective assessment of radiosonde homogenization supports the conclusions of the synthesis report of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), and associated research, regarding potential bias in tropospheric temperature records from radiosondes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small-scale gravity waves are common features in atmospheric temperature observations. In satellite observations, these waves have been traditionally difficult to resolve because the footprint or resolution of the measurements precluded their detection or clear identification. Recent advances in satellite instrument resolution coupled to innovative analysis techniques have led in the last decade to some new global datasets describing the temperature variance associated with these waves. Such satellite observations have been considered the best hope for quantifying the global properties of gravity waves needed to constrain parameterizations of their effects for global models. Although global maps of averaged gravity wave temperature variance have now been published from a variety of different instruments on Earth-orbiting platforms these maps have not provided the needed constraints. The present paper first summarizes what has been learned from traditional temporally and spatially averaged analyses of satellite gravity wave observations and why new analysis methods are needed. Then an alternative is offered to these traditional analyses that recognizes the fact that the waves occur in large-amplitude events, or wave packets, that can be analyzed individually and in a statistical sense with probability density functions. For this purpose the authors present some examples of the occurrence of short-horizontal-scale waves appearing in Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) radiance measurements and present statistics on the wave properties compiled over 1 month of data for a geographic region over Patagonia, South America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The detection and attribution of climate change in the observed record play a central role in synthesizing knowledge of the climate system. Unfortunately, the traditional method for detecting and attributing changes due to multiple forcings requires large numbers of general circulation model (GCM) simulations incorporating different initial conditions and forcing scenarios, and these have only been performed with a small number of GCMs. This paper presents an extension to the fingerprinting technique that permits the inclusion of GCMs in the multisignal analysis of surface temperature even when the required families of ensembles have not been generated. This is achieved by fitting a series of energy balance models (EBMs) to the GCM output in order to estimate the temporal response patterns to the various forcings. This methodology is applied to the very large Challenge ensemble of 62 simulations of historical climate conducted with the NCAR Community Climate System Model version 1.4 (CCSM1.4) GCM, as well as some simulations from other GCMs. Considerable uncertainty exists in the estimates of the parameters in fitted EBMs. Nevertheless, temporal response patterns from these EBMs are more reliable and the combined EBM time series closely mimics the GCM in the context of transient forcing. In particular, detection and attribution results from this technique appear self-consistent and consistent with results from other methods provided that all major forcings are included in the analysis. Using this technique on the Challenge ensemble, the estimated responses to changes in greenhouse gases, tropospheric sulfate aerosols, and stratospheric volcanic aerosols are all detected in the observed record, and the responses to the greenhouse gases and tropospheric sulfate aerosols are both consistent with the observed record without a scaling of the amplitude being required. The result is that the temperature difference of the 1996–2005 decade relative to the 1940–49 decade can be attributed to greenhouse gas emissions, with a partially offsetting cooling from sulfate emissions and little contribution from natural sources. The results support the viability of the new methodology as an extension to current analysis tools for the detection and attribution of climate change, which will allow the inclusion of many more GCMs. Shortcomings remain, however, and so it should not be considered a replacement to traditional techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an update on the detection and attribution of global annual mean surface air temperature changes, using recently developed climate models. In particular, it applies a new methodology that permits the inclusion of many more general circulation models (GCMs) into the analysis, and it also includes more recent observations. This methodology involves fitting a series of energy balance models (EBMs) to the GCM output in order to estimate the temporal response patterns to the various forcings. Despite considerable spread in estimated EBM parameters, characteristics of model performance, such as the transient climate response, appear to be more constrained for each of the forcings. The resulting estimated response patterns are provided as input to the standard fingerprinting method used in previous studies. The estimated GCM responses to changes in greenhouse gases are detected in the observed record for all of the GCMs, and are generally found to be consistent with the observed changes; the same is generally true for the responses to changes in stratospheric aerosols from volcanic eruptions. GCM responses to changes in tropospheric sulfate aerosols and solar irradiance also appear consistent with the observed record, although the uncertainty is larger. Greenhouse gas and solar irradiance changes are found to have contributed to a best guess of ∼0.8 and ∼0.3 K warming over the 1901–2005 period, respectively, while sulfate aerosols have contributed a ∼0.4 K cooling. This analysis provides an observationally constrained estimate of future warming, which is found to be fairly robust across GCMs. By 2100, a warming of between about 1.5 and 4.5 K can be expected according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A1B emissions scenario. These results indicate an emerging constraint for global mean surface temperature responses to external forcings across GCMs, which is corroborated in the observed record. This implies that observationally constrained estimates of past warming and predictions of future warming are indeed becoming robust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the role that horizontal resolution plays in the simulation of East Asia precipitation. Two sets of numerical experiments are performed using the Regional Climate Model (RegCM2) nested in one-way mode within the CSIRO global coupled atmosphere-ocean model. In the first set we use the actual RegCM2 topography at the selected model resolutions, which are 45, 60, 90, 120, 180, 240 and 360 km. In the second set of the experiments, the same coarse CSIRO model topography is used in all simulations using the different resolutions of the first set. The results demonstrate that the simulation of East Asian precipitation improves as the horizontal resolution is increased. Moreover, it is shown that the simulations using a higher resolution along with the coarse CSIRO topography perform better than the simulations using a coarser model resolution with corresponding model topography. This suggests that over East Asia adequate spatial resolution to resolve the physical and dynamical processes is more important than topography. Lastly, the results indicate that model resolutions of 60 km or higher are needed to accurately simulate the distribution of precipitation over China and East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents comments and criticisms on the published paper "Hurricanes and global warming. This is presentation of the views and scientific perspectives as well as the perspectives on structure and function of scientific assessments given by Anthes et al.(2006) and Pielke et al. (2005). The policy action in question here deals with what could be the most effective policy with regards to tropical cyclone that have an impact in the societal vulnerability. There is an on-going investigation on the issues of research in climate changes and tropical cyclones. Also, a brief enumeration on the criticisms by Pielke et al.(2005) and Anthes et al.(2006) is emphasized.

This paper deals with variability in the air temperature field of an urban area during thermal advection, associated with frontal zones, and its interaction with an urban heat island (UHI). Thermal changes experienced in Wrocław, Poland form the basis of this case study analysis. The discussion also contributes to questions concerning the definition of the UHI and ways to select UHI episodes from existing data sets. It is shown that changes in temperature generated during periods of advection are of short duration, only a few hours at most, but thermal contrasts between various parts of a city at such times are sometimes large, reaching an intensity of 5–6 K, even as large as 9 K. Thus, their intensity is comparable with that of the UHI occurring on cloudless and windless nights. The thermal influence of advection is often greater than that due to urban factors; it is only on occasions with less dynamic advection, that a concentric temperature field is formed due to the modified physical properties of the city. In the majority of cases, the thermal field is non-concentric and this is linked with the location of a frontal zone at any given time. The thermal effects of advection recorded in a data set might easily be viewed as episodes of UHI existence, especially if analysis is conducted based on the data derived from just two stations – one urban the other rural. On occasions when such ‘quasi-UHI’ occur the role of the location of the rural, reference station is also evaluated. Precise definition of the urban heat island can be of significance when conducting comparative studies of the UHI in cities located in different geographical zones and when making an urban climate synthesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relative importance of the processes responsible for the annual cycle in the upper-ocean heat content in the Peru Current, in the southeastern tropical Pacific, was diagnosed from an oceanic analysis dataset. It was found that the annual cycle of heat content is forced mainly by insolation. However, the ocean dynamical processes play an important role in producing different regional budget characteristics. In a band 500 km from the coast of Peru, the annual heat content changes in this region are relatively large and can be approximated as sea surface temperature (SST) changes in a fixed-depth mixed layer. The annual cycle of the albedo associated with low-level clouds enhances the annual cycle in insolation, which explains the relatively strong annual cycle of heat content. These clouds, to a large extent, act as a feedback to SST, but a small additional forcing, which is proposed to be cold air advection in this paper, is needed to explain the fact that the maximum cloudiness leads the lowest SST by around a month. Ocean dynamics is important closer to the coast, where upwelling acts partly as damping of the heat content changes and forces it to peak earlier than farther offshore. In a band farther to the southwest, locally wind-forced thermocline motions, which become shallower (deeper) in the warm (cool) season, partially cancel the effect of net surface heat fluxes, whose annual cycle is comparable to that in the region previously mentioned, producing a relatively small annual cycle of heat content. The local forcing appears to be associated with the annual meridional displacements of the South Pacific anticyclone. The annual cycle in SST is also relatively small, which is probably due to the changes in the temperature of the water entrained into the mixed layer associated with the thermocline motions, but also to a mixed layer deeper than that closer to the coast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Chesapeake Lighthouse and Aircraft Measurements for Satellites (CLAMS), the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Airborne Sounder Testbed-Interferometer (NAST-I), flying aboard the high-altitude Proteus aircraft, observed the spatial distribution of infrared radiance across the 650–2700 cm-1 (3.7–15.4 μm) spectral region with a spectral resolution of 0.25 cm-1. NAST-I scans cross track with a moderate spatial resolution (a linear ground resolution equal to 13% of the aircraft altitude at nadir). The broad spectral coverage and high spectral resolution of this instrument provides abundant information about the surface and three-dimensional state of the atmosphere. In this paper, the NAST-I measurements and geophysical product retrieval methodology employed for CLAMS are described. Example results of surface properties and atmospheric temperature, water vapor, ozone, and carbon monoxide distributions are provided. The CLAMS NAST-I geophysical dataset is available for use by the scientific community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the research on ocean circulation in a warming climate. Accordingly, findings show that the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) had stronger winds which fit to the common observation that it is windier in the winter than in the summer because there is greater thermal contrast within the atmosphere in the winter hemisphere. Moreover, the paper cited several observations that predict that oceans' circulation will weaken in response to global warming, but the warming at the end of the last ice age suggests a different outcome. However, by studying these observations, it is clear that large circulation changes took place and it seems unlikely that circulation changes of this magnitude could have happened without substantial changes in the wind forcing.

This article discusses climate change and hurricanes. Papers that appeared in the scholarly journals "Nature" and "Science" during the summer of 2005 raised the question of global warming being the cause of the record-breaking hurricane season of 2005. The article examines that argument, noting that many scientists believe that human-induced climate warming is indeed real. Also discussed is the increasing intensity of hurricanes since 1975, as well as the rise in seas surface temperatures and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.