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This document provides a summary of a hackathon event organized by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and Aon, a reinsurance company, to explore the social impacts of climate change. The hackathon focused on developing consistent scenarios for future climate risk, understanding uncertainties in European windstorm modeling, and providing real-time context for extreme weather events. The teams developed tools and methodologies to assess the severity and potential impact of extreme events on insured losses. The collaboration between the MoJ, Aon, and participants from various institutions aims to further research and develop papers and grant proposals in these areas. [Extracted from the article]

Current soil‐ and land degradation seriously challenge our societies; it contributes to climate change, loss of biodiversity and loss of agricultural productions. Yet, soils are also seen as a major part of the solution, if maintained or restored to provide ecosystem services. Climate‐smart sustainable management of soils can provide options for soil health maintenance and restoration. In the European Union, the resource management and sustainability challenge are addressed in the Green Deal that, among other goals, aspires towards a healthy climate‐resilient agricultural sector that will produce sufficient products without damaging ecosystems and contribute to better biodiversity and mitigate climate change. The European Joint Programme (EJP) SOIL was set up to contribute to these goals by developing knowledge, tools and an integrated research community to foster climate‐smart sustainable agricultural soil management that provides a diversity of ecosystem service, such as adapting to and mitigating climate change, allowing sustainable food production, and sustaining soil biodiversity. This paper provides an overview of the potential of climate‐smart sustainable soil management research to the targets of the Green Deal that are related to soils most directly. The EJP SOIL EU‐wide consultation (interviews and questionnaires) and literature analysis (national and international reports and papers) done in the first year (2020–2021) generated a wealth of data. This data showed that there are specific manners to do research that are essential for it to be effective and efficient and that can actively contribute to the Green Deal targets. We concluded that research needs to be: (i) interdisciplinary, (ii) long‐term, (iii) multi‐scaled, from plot to landscape, (iv) evaluating trade‐offs of selected management options for ecosystem services and (v) co‐constructed with key stakeholders. Research on climate‐smart sustainable soil management should be developed (1) on plot scale when mobilizing soil processes and on landscape scale when addressing sediment and water connectivity and biodiversity management; and (2) address the enabling conditions through good governance, social acceptance and viable economic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The dedication of the international anaesthetic community to reducing the environmental impact of healthcare is important and to be celebrated. When this is underpinned by robust science, it has the potential to make a real difference. However, volatile anaesthetic agents have been widely promoted in the medical literature as damaging to the climate, leading to a drive to remove them from clinical practice. This is based on notional 'CO2‐equivalent' values created using the simple emission metric known as the global warming potential. Here, we assert that when proper consideration is given to the science of climate change, volatile anaesthetic gas emissions cannot be simply equated to real carbon dioxide emissions, and that their climate impact is vanishingly small. This paper gives anaesthetists a framework to make informed choices founded on climate science and calls for attention to be refocused on the urgent need to reduce the real carbon dioxide emissions associated with healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While UN reports indicate increasingly dire consequences of climate change, the political will to initiate rapid decarbonization is lacking, as nations fail to meet targets set by international agreements. Given these developments, this paper investigates the role of climate dread and fatalism in the discourse about climate science. We examine the treatment of fatalism in major theories of the policy process, noting that climate policy represents a relatively novel situation—in which a problem once deemed solvable is being redefined as an issue outside the realm of human control. Using automated content analysis, we examine how journalists and interest groups framed reports issued by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from 2013 to 2022. We find limited changes in the tone and content of news stories and environmental groups' statements, and we suggest that these findings reflect under‐reaction of the political system to new information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sheds light on an important and under‐researched issue: The sources of information about climate change that teachers use. Utilising a 'scoping review' methodological approach, we analysed over 600 papers to address two main questions: What sources of information about climate change are teachers using? In what ways are teachers using these sources of information? Through our use of inclusive search terms and detailed analysis of papers, we found only 13 studies of relevance, none of which primarily focus on the sources of information teachers use. The 13 studies are all located in the Global North, and within this nearly half are in the USA. Methodologically, all apart from two rely on teachers' reports rather than observation or other methods. Four types of sources of information were frequently mentioned: The Internet; government sources; mass media and professional development courses. The 'superabundance' of information now available to teachers (particularly online), the importance of high‐quality information for students' understandings of climate change, and the limited research on the sources of information about climate change that teachers use makes this is a significant blind spot for research to address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise in the Earth's global average surface temperature and the increase of extreme weather events have been the focus of scientific discussion in the last decades. Extreme heat combined with other environmental extremes, like high concentrations of air pollution, may induce health problems—especially in socioeconomically vulnerable populations. Spring in South America requires particular attention due to its association with hot, dry weather and air pollution in most parts of the continent. This paper intends to better comprehend the behaviour of heatwaves during the austral winter–spring transition. We propose identifying the spatial coverage, frequency and intensity of heatwaves in homogeneous areas of maximum air temperature near the surface (Tmax). We employed cluster analyses during the period between July and October for 41 years (1979–2019) through the ERA5 reanalysis. Homogeneous Tmax areas in South America were defined by cluster analyses that indicated three homogeneous Tmax regions, as follows: a larger area of the continent including the tropical region (Area 1), eastern and southeastern South America (Area 2) and southernmost and steep areas in the Andes (Area 3). The heatwave events identified via ERA5 reanalysis were classified according to their intensity (intense, moderate and weak events). Spatial frequency and trend analyses were also performed regarding the intensity and persistence of heatwave episodes. These methods allowed the identification of the behavioural aspect of heatwaves spanning the last four decades. The Mann–Kendall statistical test (MK) was applied in order to analyse the heatwave trend with a statistical significance level of 5%. A total of 191 heatwave episodes were identified. Of this total, 47.12, 35.60 and 17.28% of episodes occurred in Areas 2, 3 and 1, respectively. The hotter area extending from northeast to southwest in central South America stood out by its largest frequencies of intense heatwave episodes. Across the continent there was a significant increase in the intensity and persistence of heatwaves over the period of 1979 through to 2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sinking atolls are an enduring symbol of the power of climate change to destroy inhabited places. Climate impact science and the media share a panoptic gaze on atoll islands seeing them as being small, inert and passive in the face of rising seas. The focus in these accounts is on the power of water as the agent of destruction, while the agency of the assemblage of human and non‐human actors that is the (is)land itself is ignored. Thus, atolls are said to be vulnerable, and the prevailing ideas of adaptation are either international relocation to avoid the sea or seawalls to contain it. Based on qualitative field research in Pacific atolls, this paper examines the connections between island peoples and their terrestrial environments, and the work that they are doing in response to the impacts of climate change. It shows how land is conceived symbolically, socio‐culturally and legally, and considers its role in sustaining livelihoods and anchoring identities through a changing climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advent of climate change as a major challenge of our time, Earth system modeling has become highly policy‐relevant regulatory science. In this situation, the social mechanisms that play a role in any scientific endeavor become particularly exposed. By discussing historical, philosophical, and sociological (HPS) aspects of the field's current "cultures of prediction" together with the physical science community in a physical science journal, we aim to provide an entry point into HPS reasoning for climate scientists interested in reflecting on their field and science in general. This paper, first, introduces our perspective on "science as culture" and climate modeling as "regulatory science" and, second, highlights and connects relevant ideas from the three commentaries that follow it. In so doing, we hope to give a fuller picture of climate science, the interplay it engenders between HPS and the physical sciences, the distinctions that it gives rise to as compared to some of the more traditional, exact, sciences in which it is rooted and its place in society including its role in scientific policy advice. Key Points: With the advent of climate change as a major challenge of our time, Earth system modeling has become highly policy relevantIn this situation, the social mechanisms that play a role in any scientific endeavor become particularly exposedThis paper introduces perspectives on "science as culture" and highlights relevant ideas from the three subsequent commentaries [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the GISS‐E2.1 contribution to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, Phase 6 (CMIP6). This model version differs from the predecessor model (GISS‐E2) chiefly due to parameterization improvements to the atmospheric and ocean model components, while keeping atmospheric resolution the same. Model skill when compared to modern era climatologies is significantly higher than in previous versions. Additionally, updates in forcings have a material impact on the results. In particular, there have been specific improvements in representations of modes of variability (such as the Madden‐Julian Oscillation and other modes in the Pacific) and significant improvements in the simulation of the climate of the Southern Oceans, including sea ice. The effective climate sensitivity to 2 × CO2 is slightly higher than previously at 2.7–3.1°C (depending on version) and is a result of lower CO2 radiative forcing and stronger positive feedbacks. Plain Language Summary: This paper describes the latest iteration of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) climate model, which will be used for understanding historical climate change and to make projections for the future. We compare the model output to a wide range of observations over the recent era (1979–2014) and show that there has been a significant increase in how well the model performs compared to the previous version from 2014, particularly in the Southern Ocean, though some persistent biases remain. The model has a temperature response to the increase of carbon dioxide that is slightly higher than previous versions but is well within the range expected from observational and past climate constraints. Key Points: GISS‐E2.1 is an updated climate model version for use within the CMIP6 projectAtmospheric composition is calculated consistently in all model versionsResults demonstrate a significant improvement in skill in a climate model without changes to atmospheric resolution [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tropics are expanding poleward at an alarming rate-with massive implications for societies, economies, and natural environments. This expansion appears to be determined largely by anthropogenic drivers-notably rises in greenhouse gases. Of greatest concern is the poleward shift of the dry sub-tropical zone into highly populated regions that have generally enjoyed a more temperate climate. While the effects of latitudinal shifts of climate zones will be most severe in temperate regions outside the tropics, there will also be significant changes in climate within the tropics-notably unprecedented thermal conditions for hundreds of millions of people, along with projections for more extreme weather events. Australia's geographical location makes it particularly vulnerable to an expanding tropics. As the tropics expand poleward, more of southern Australia will be influenced by the dry sub-tropical zone and associated reductions in winter rainfall. These drying trends are projected to continue over most southern parts of Australia this century, accompanied by rising temperatures and more hot days. Future rainfall trends for northern Australia remain uncertain, but there is an expected significant increase in the number of hot days, together with more extreme weather events. Future climate change in northern Australia has been ignored by the White Paper for the Development of Northern Australia (2015), bringing into serious question the feasibility and affordability of many of the development policies, plans, and projects promulgated in the White Paper. Even without climate change, the north faces many significant environmental and economic challenges for its future development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from theory on the "co-production" of science and society, this paper provides an account of trajectories in US climatology, roughly from the 1850s to 1920, the period during which climatology emerged as an organized branch of meteorology and government administration. The historical narrative traces the development of climatology both as a professional/institutional project and as a component of a larger governmental logic. Historical analysis of climatologists' scientific texts, maps, and social organization within government provides a sociological explanation for the emergent "stabilization" of climate as a geographic-statistical category. Climatic stability, defined by the view that climate is unchanging, was advanced over this period in a way that linked the interests and practices of climatologists to actors invested in facilitating and administrating commercial agriculture and trade. I position the logic of climatology and the discourse of climatic stability historically, with reference to prior concern with climate change and, in recent decades, efforts to govern global warming through geoengineering climatic stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change poses worldwide challenges, perhaps most in coastal areas. Governments on different scales respond with planning and policy measures, many with drastic impact. In this paper we assess the role of cultural heritage in planning for climate change on the former island Goeree‐Overflakkee in the Netherlands. We do so by exploring the theoretical discourse on the nexus of climate change and heritage discourses and relating these to an analysis of mitigation and adaptation measures on the island of Goeree‐Overflakkee in the Dutch river delta. It appears that the scale and political urgency of climate change induces involvement of many different governments, resulting in an inconsistent integration of cultural heritage in these plans and policies. These outcomes demonstrate that in order to integrate heritage in climate adaptation and mitigation planning, governments cannot rely on established planning traditions for other spatial challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change adaptation strategies that aim to minimize harm and maximize benefits related to climate change impacts have mushroomed at all levels of government in recent years. While many studies have explored barriers that stand in the way of their implementation, the factors determining their potential to mainstream adaptation into various sectors are less clear. In the present paper, we aim to address this gap for two international, six national, and six local adaptation strategies. Based on document analyses and 35 semi‐structured interviews, the 14 case studies also explore in how far the factors facilitating climate change adaptation are similar across levels of government or level‐specific. Although located at three different levels of government, we find that the 14 adaptation strategies analyzed here represent "one‐size‐fits‐all governance arrangements" that are characterized by voluntariness and a lack institutionalization. Since adaptation strategies are relatively weak coordination hubs that are unable to force adaptation onto sectoral policy agendas, they rely mainly on sectoral self‐interest in adapting to climate change, largely determined by problem pressure. We conclude that one‐size‐fits‐all governance arrangements are rarely adequate responses to complex challenges, such as climate change. Although climate change adaptation depends more on framework conditions such as problem pressure than on administrative or governance features, the findings presented here can help to understand under what circumstances adaptation is likely to make progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the shaping of Bangladesh's southern coastal region, often framed as the most climate vulnerable place in the world, as a zone of climate crisis. As rising waters threaten communities inhabiting the low‐lying coastal islands scattered across the deltaic plain, many within the government and donor community have identified shrimp aquaculture as a principal adaptation strategy. Shrimp aquaculture is integral to the dynamics of what I call anticipatory ruination, a discursive and material process of social and ecological destruction in anticipation of real or perceived threats. I elaborate anticipatory ruination as a process that both responds to and produces Bangladesh's climate crisis. I use this concept to explore not only the dynamics taking place in Bangladesh's delta region, but also the ways in which climate crisis is constituted more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares extreme value statistics of daily maximum 10 m wind speed in winter simulated by the regional climate model COSMO‐CLM at a horizontal resolution of 15 km (C15) with the reanalyses ERA‐Interim and Arctic System reanalysis (ASR version 1 and 2) and with a satellite data set (CCMPv2). Our C15 simulation (1979/1980–2015/2016, November–April) is thereby the longest high‐resolution simulation available for the Arctic. The results show that the extreme wind speeds tend to increase over the ocean with increasing the horizontal model resolution. A horizontal resolution of ≤15 km is required to sufficiently capture all extreme wind characteristics, in particular for the tip jets and barrier winds over the Irminger Sea and in the Denmark Strait, and for the low‐level jets in the Nares Strait. Of almost equal importance are physical parameterizations of surface fluxes and of turbulence. Capturing extreme wind characteristics has a direct effect on climate relevant air–ice–ocean interactions, such as triggering open‐ocean deep convection, polynya dynamics, or on the sea ice and freshwater balance of the Arctic. State‐of‐the‐art global climate models and reanalyses (e.g., ERA‐Interim) underestimate the extreme near‐surface wind speeds in the Arctic and around Greenland. Regional climate models, for example, ASR/WRF or COSMO‐CLM, resolve the mesoscale wind systems that frequently produce extreme winds, which we estimated i.a. as 10‐year return levels (see the figure). Capturing extreme wind characteristics has a direct effect on climate relevant air–ice–ocean interactions, such as triggering open‐ocean deep convection, polynya dynamics, or on the sea ice and freshwater balance of the Arctic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, numerous studies have investigated the relationship of extreme precipitation intensities with temperature derived from a binning method using present‐day weather data. The aim of this approach is that these dependencies, or so‐called apparent scaling rates, provide insights on how precipitation extremes could evolve in the future climate. In a recent paper, Bao et al. showed that there is a large discrepancy between the present‐day apparent scaling rates—showing a negative dependency of daily rainfall extremes on temperature for Darwin—and the climate change response showing a substantial increase in daily rainfall extremes. Their results provide compelling evidence that it may not be straightforward to predict the climate change response from the temperature scaling. We agree with this statement, but disagree with the physical explanation put forward in that study and think that moisture limitations are the most likely cause. Therefore, we advocate the use of dew point temperatures in scaling studies as a much more direct proxy of the absolute humidity of the air in which precipitation extremes develop, which we think is physically more consistent with the underlying mechanism causing the increase in precipitation extremes with global warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyse the relationship between the mean and extreme precipitation for five stations in Hungary and the circulation types at the 500 hPa level, for a 52‐year period, 1958–2010. We used daily rainfall data for each station and a calendar of the daily circulation types at the 500 hPa geopotential height for Hungary based on an automatic classification scheme. A trend analysis showed that, in general, the mean and extreme precipitation rarely exhibit significant trends, similarly to previous studies. The only exception was found for the number of annual and summer rainy days in Budapest with significant negative trends (p = .05), as well as the number of days with rainfall amounts greater than the 95% probability level for Debrecen with a significant positive trend. It was found that the circulation types that are mainly responsible for the largest precipitation amounts overall show (in some cases significant) negative trends, as well as the precipitation amounts that are associated with them (Cwsw, Cse, Cwnw). In most cases, the circulation types that are prevailing during the extreme precipitation events are associated with western or almost‐western atmospheric circulations (Cwsw, Ase) and Mediterranean‐ or Atlantic‐origin depressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have reported that much of the surface wind speed (SWS) over the mid‐latitudes of the northern hemisphere has declined. However, very few studies have investigated the relatively recent phenomenon of wind recovery. Based on 68 wind data series, this paper examines changes in wind speed in northwest China between 1969 and 2015. In 1992, following a decade of sharply decreasing at a rate of 0.036 m s−1 a−1 (p < .05), the SWS began to significant increase at a rate of 0.004 m s−1 a−1. The specific reasons for this increase are as follows: (a) The decrease in SWS during the pre‐1992 slowdown period is the result of declining wind speeds in spring and summer, whereas increases in wind speed during the post‐1992 recovery period are caused by increased wind in winter. (b) The number of days featuring strongly varying wind speeds has changed. Specifically, the number of days above 2 m s−1 all show a significant decreasing trend from 1969 to 1992, whereas the number of days of 1–3 m s−1 shows a significant upward trend from 1993 to 2015. (c) Stations located between 1,000 and 1,500 m.a.s.l. (meter above sea level) are more sensitive to climate change than those at other altitudes, which shows the biggest decline (increase) trend during wind speed slowdown (recovery) period. These stations could potentially act as climatic indicators to predict future wind speed changes. SWS in northwest China have been affected by changes both in large‐scale atmospheric circulation and in regional warming. Surface pressure gradient variations between high‐ and low‐latitude regions may be important contributors to wind speed changes under asymmetric warming. However, urbanization is only moderately responsible for trend changes in SWS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Information on the response of vegetation to different environmental drivers, including rainfall, forms a critical input to ecosystem models. Currently, such models are run based on parameters that, in some cases, are either assumed or lack supporting evidence (e.g., that vegetation growth across Africa is rainfall‐driven). A limited number of studies have reported that the onset of rain across Africa does not fully explain the onset of vegetation growth, for example, drawing on the observation of prerain flush effects in some parts of Africa. The spatial extent of this prerain green‐up effect, however, remains unknown, leaving a large gap in our understanding that may bias ecosystem modelling. This paper provides the most comprehensive spatial assessment to‐date of the magnitude and frequency of the different patterns of phenology response to rainfall across Africa and for different vegetation types. To define the relations between phenology and rainfall, we investigated the spatial variation in the difference, in number of days, between the start of rainy season (SRS) and start of vegetation growing season (SOS); and between the end of rainy season (ERS) and end of vegetation growing season (EOS). We reveal a much more extensive spread of prerain green‐up over Africa than previously reported, with prerain green‐up being the norm rather than the exception. We also show the relative sparsity of postrain green‐up, confined largely to the Sudano‐Sahel region. While the prerain green‐up phenomenon is well documented, its large spatial extent was not anticipated. Our results, thus, contrast with the widely held view that rainfall drives the onset and end of the vegetation growing season across Africa. Our findings point to a much more nuanced role of rainfall in Africa's vegetation growth cycle than previously thought, specifically as one of a set of several drivers, with important implications for ecosystem modelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographer C. W. Thornthwaite proposed in 1948 a moisture index called Thornthwaite Moisture Index ( TMI) as part of a water balance model for a new classification system for climate. The importance of TMI climatic classification has been recognised in many areas of knowledge and practice worldwide over the last 60 years. However, although past climate research was focused on developing adequate methods for climate classification, current research is more concerned with understanding the patterns of climate change. The use of TMI as an indicator for climate change is still an incipient area of research. The contributions of this paper are twofold. First, it is to fully document a methodology based on geostatistics adopted to produce a time series of TMI maps that are accurate and have high spatial resolution. The state of Victoria, in Australia, over the last century, is used as the case study. Second, by analysing these maps, the paper presents a general evaluation of the spatial patterns found in Victoria related to moisture variability across space and over time. Some potential implications of the verified moisture changes are discussed, and a number of ideas for further development are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Going Green! Middle Schoolers Out to Save the World project aims to direct middle school students' enthusiasm for hands‐on activities toward interest in science and other STEM areas while guiding them to solve real‐world problems. Students in this project are taught by their teachers to use energy monitoring equipment to audit standby power consumed by electronic devices in their homes and communities. Major findings were: (a) Beliefs in climate change increased more for students in the treatment than comparison group, pre to post; and (b) For girls there was a larger positive impact on climate change beliefs than for boys. These and additional findings presented in this paper provide evidence that a hands‐on engaged‐learning curriculum can have a positive influence on climate change beliefs and intentions and strengthen the association between the two constructs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pride in Australia's extreme climate has long been a part of Australia's national identity. Today, climate continues to be enrolled in a range of nationalistic projects, including the (re)development of climate science and other responses to climate change. In this paper, we outline some of the contours of the 'Australian national climate', claims to know it, and four idealised responses to it: bounce back, dismissal, endurance, and migration. We argue that the deeply cultural framing of climate in Australia-in particular, Australians' emphasis on the climate's inherent variability and unknowability, and their own historical adaptability-is being exploited by the federal government and hampering climate change mitigation nationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The feedbacks of vegetation growth to climate are very important and exhibit large differences, depending on seasons and characteristics of plants and climate. Through two simulations, this work investigated these differences among the influences of the seasonal growth of different vegetation on surface energy budgets over the latitudinal range of 30-90°N and detected associated causes. The seasonal growth of vegetation is expressed as an increase in leaf area index ( LAI) during the growing season (April-October) compared to boreal winter (December-January-February). The results showed that notable effects occurred in latent heat flux, downward solar radiation and reflected solar radiation for dominant plant functional types ( PFTs). With a seasonal increase in LAI, the latent heat flux of 'needleleaf evergreen boreal tree' ( NEB) decreased, while it increased for the other dominant PFTs. Such unexpected behaviours of NEB were mainly contributed by the weak changes in its transpiration, which was associated to land-atmosphere feedbacks (the decreased downward solar radiation) and competitions among PFTs (the intensified transpirations of the deciduous vegetation PFTs). Surface downward solar radiation decreased for all dominant vegetation PFTs because of more low clouds. The reflected solar radiation of 'broadleaf deciduous temperate tree' increased along with increased LAI because its leaf albedo is higher than that of the background soil, and the reflected solar radiation of 'broadleaf deciduous boreal shrub' drastically decreased during April and May, which resulted from its interactions with accumulated snow. This paper sufficiently proves that the feedbacks of different vegetation to surface energy balance could vary widely, not only in magnitudes but also in directions. Therefore, it is very important to accurately parameterize vegetation phenology and optical properties for a better representation of vegetation-climate interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the daily precipitation data recorded for the last 75-80 years in SE Spain. Prior to statistical analysis, homogeneity tests were performed to determine the usefulness of the data (recorded in six pluviometric stations). If the data were homogeneous, the Mann–Kendall test was performed to detect monotonic trends for variables such as total precipitation, number of days with precipitation greater than 1, 20 or 40 mm, number of consecutive dry days and number of consecutive wet days. Moreover, the linear tendency was calculated and accepted (or rejected) by performing a Student's t-test of the calculated residual values. The results showed, on average, a clear change in precipitation patterns for the last 20 years. Annual rainfall had decreased, with values ranging from 0 to 15%, dry periods had increased in length, and the number of rainy days had decreased (especially when high daily precipitation was considered). This latter notion did not exactly concur with the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2014 Synthesis Report related to the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The amount of sunshine weighs heavily in our perception of the weather. It is largely determined by cloud cover, especially that at the low-to-medium level. Therefore, when reviewing the Hong Kong Observatory's weather symbol forecasting product, verification on the low-to-medium cloud field is carried out against the synoptic observations at the Hong Kong International Airport. Several metrics are used to examine the different aspects of the forecasts, and consideration is given to the non-Gaussian nature of the reported cloud amount for a fairer assessment. Based on the data from January to mid-August 2015, the median of the forecasts from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Ensemble Prediction System is found to outperform the other model forecasts, particularly when the performance is examined by forecast day. This paper presents these results and also discusses the potential of using the field in deriving site-specific weather symbol forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the recently developed variable-resolution option within the Community Earth System Model (VR-CESM) is assessed for long-term regional climate modeling of California at 0.25° (∼28 km) and 0.125° (∼14 km) horizontal resolutions. The mean climatology of near-surface temperature and precipitation is analyzed and contrasted with reanalysis, gridded observational data sets, and a traditional regional climate model (RCM)-the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Statistical metrics for model evaluation and tests for differential significance have been extensively applied. With only prescribed sea surface temperatures, VR-CESM tended to produce a warmer summer (by about 1-3°C) and overestimated overall winter precipitation (about 25%-35%) compared to reference data sets. Increasing resolution from 0.25° to 0.125° did not produce a statistically significant improvement in the model results. By comparison, the analogous WRF climatology (constrained laterally and at the sea surface by ERA-Interim reanalysis) was ∼1-3°C colder than the reference data sets, underestimated precipitation by ∼20%-30% at 27 km resolution, and overestimated precipitation by ∼65-85% at 9 km. Overall, VR-CESM produced comparable statistical biases to WRF in key climatological quantities. This assessment highlights the value of variable-resolution global climate models (VRGCMs) in capturing fine-scale atmospheric processes, projecting future regional climate, and addressing the computational expense of uniform-resolution global climate models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to study the model's simulated frequency, track, intensity and location of cyclonic storms (CSs) and severe cyclonic storms (SCSs) in the Bay of Bengal (BoB), India. For the purpose, the PRECIS (Providing REgional Climates for Impacts Studies) a regional climate modelling system, of UK Met Office, is used. This model is integrated for the period 1961-1990 (baseline) and the future time period 2071-2100 (High emission scenario, A2). To run the model, the initial and lateral boundary conditions are supplied by UK Met Office. The analysis of frequency, track, intensity and location are carried out for May, June, September and October for the period 1961-1990 and 2071-2100. To evaluate the model's performance in simulating storms frequency during 1961-1990, chi square test is carried out with observed storms for the same period. The model's simulated frequency of storms is an overestimation of observations although the frequency of model's simulated storms during 2071-2100 is less than that of during 1961-1990. In general, model's simulated storms are found moving in the northwest direction from their initial location in all months during 1961-1990 and 2071-2100. In model's simulations, the drop in central pressure is relatively more in the months of May, June, September and October during 2071-2100 compared with that during 1961-1990. During 2071-2100, more intense storms may be possible in the months of May and June compared with that of September and October. It is observed that the model is able to simulate the initial locations of storms during 1961-1990 and 2071-2100 close to observations for the months of June and September, especially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper revisits the strength and stationarity of linear statistical relationships between indices of monsoon rainfall derived from rain gauge data for three regions in tropical West Africa [West Sahel (WS), Central Sahel (CS), and Guinea Coast (GC)] and various indices describing remote variations in the ocean-atmosphere climate systems from 1921 to 2009. The results reveal that both the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation ( AMO) and the Atlantic Meridional Mode ( AMM) show a positive linear correlation to Sahel rainfall. The percent variance explained ( PVE) ranges from 10 to 25%. The correlation stems from periods longer than 8 years for AMO, but AMM does show a correlation on interannual time scales for WS that was absent in the 1970s and 1980s. The PVE by El Niño Southern Oscillation ( ENSO) indices is, though statistically significant, on the order of 10% and found mainly on the interannual time scale. A strong and stable correlation with PVEs larger than 50% is found between the sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the Atlantic 3 region ( ATL3, 0°-20°W, 3°S-3°N) and the GC rainfall. On the other hand, the correlation between ATL3 and WS rainfall changed from significantly negative to significantly positive after the 1970s. The Eastern Mediterranean SSTs are found to be significantly related to CS rainfall, especially in recent years with PVEs between 36 and 47%. Multi-linear regression analyses reveal that the relative importance of the Indian Ocean is 42% in the optimal regression model. For the CS, this value is 37% for the Eastern Mediterranean SSTs and 70% in case of the GC using the ATL3 index. However, except for the GC, non-stationarities in the correlation between the climate state indexes and West African monsoon ( WAM) rainfall suggest the need of the application of different regression models depending on the active 'teleconnection regime'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long term time series of climate observations measured at meteorological stations provide one of the most accurate records of climate in the past. Nevertheless, there are a number of factors that affect measurements of climatic parameters which may cause abrupt or more gradual shifts and trends in the corresponding time series. Thus in order to draw sound conclusions about the climate, homogenized data series are required. Because of the large number of different monthly homogenization methods a coordinated European initiative was launched namely the COST Action HOME ES0601: Advances in Homogenization Methods of Climate Series: an integrated approach ( HOME). Its main objective was to review and improve common homogenization methods and to assess their impact on climate time series. In this paper the homogenization method HOMER resulted by the COST Action ES0601, was applied to 52 monthly temperature series of synoptic stations for the period 1960-2004, belonging to the operational weather network of the Hellenic National Meteorological Service ( HNMS). Eight stations passed the homogeneity test successfully without any break point or outlier, for two stations only outliers were reported, but not any break points and the remaining 42 stations presented one or more breaks. Approximately 32% of the breaks could be explained by the stations' history. Station relocations as well as changes in observation practices caused most of the temperature anomalies. The adjustments in yearly temperature series were in the range from −1.2 to 2.0 °C. Seasonal and annual anomalies of raw and homogenized series were calculated using as reference the 30-year period 1961-1990. Also, seasonal and annual mean temperature trends before and after homogenization were analysed and their statistical significance calculated. A reduction of trend magnitude was found to be noticeable in all seasons. The most pronounced trend differences were found in summer followed by winter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite repeated calls for greater collaboration between physical and human geographers, the unique interdisciplinary potential of geography remains largely underutilized. Yet geographers are well positioned to take a leading role in the interdisciplinary turn in climate‐related research. This paper explores the possibilities for physical and human geographers to collaborate within and beyond the discipline, specifically on the topic of climate modeling. We first examine geographical research critically examining the production and circulation of climate knowledge. Drawing on insights from a recent literature called "Critical Physical Geography," we then outline how geographers might engage in collaborative and interdisciplinary work in order to promote more democratic practices of producing climate knowledge, enrich understandings of climate change, and more effectively serve goals of social and environmental justice. We argue that both the discipline of geography and the field of climate research stand to gain enormously from geographers' efforts to talk across the divide between social and natural science within and beyond the boundaries of geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This month, we begin a series of guides to the science of climate change. The first of this bimonthly series of Climate Change Shorts, ‘What do we mean by climate change?’ by David Warrilow and the Climate Science Communications Group, is on p. 251. The series will simply answer the basic main questions about this important part of our science, step by step. To begin the issue, though, we have a review of optical phenomena by Mila Zinkova: ‘Ice haloes – history, lore and science’. This fascinating paper on p. 239 describes the requirements for haloes to be observed, their mention in literature from ancient times and outlines an unusual halo display seen in San Francisco on 23 February 2016. Every forecaster, after a few months or years in the job, has a tale describing when a forecast or a broadcast went badly wrong! It is a learning experience we must all go through. On p. 247, Ken Kemp describes his experiences in ‘Bad days at the office. Extreme weather events’. Forecasting and observations in incised orography – typical of much of the higher ground of the British Isles – presents a challenge to the forecaster. ‘A short climatological study of cold air pools and drainage flows in small valleys’ by Bradley Jemmett‐Smith, Andrew Ross and Peter Sheridan provides useful insight on this subject, beginning on p. 256. The North Atlantic Oscillation is a major indicator of progression or the lack of it in Western Europe. On p. 262, ‘Influence of the North Atlantic Oscillation at local and regional scales: a case study of the Belgian coast’ by Anne‐Lise Montreuil and Margaret Chen shows how significant the effects of this oscillation are to forecasters. We finish this month’s issue looking back at the development of the links between meteorological societies in Europe, completing a review, the first part having appeared in May’s issue (p. 149). ‘Associating weather societies across Europe, Part 2’ by René Morin and Jon Wieringa on p. 268 reflects the warmth between members of European societies as they established this co‐operative venture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following on from the article in July's issue on the understanding of climate change, demonstrated by n-gram phrases in books published since 1850, Ifor Williams opens this issue with an analysis of the possible public confusion about the subject caused by news reports in Climate change confusion - who is responsible? This poignant Viewpoint clearly shows how our perception can be affected by these news reports, even though they are often ill-conceived in trying to make the slow rate of global warming something easily understood, or stating that, because change is slow and somewhat irregular, it might not be real. Putting this into perspective, our next article is the annual review, Global and regional climate in 2014 by John Kennedy, Colin Morice and David Parker of the Met Office Hadley Centre. Here is shown clearly the continuing change of climate, last year having been almost certainly the joint warmest on record, repeating the global warmth of 2010. The situation is, as always, complex, although most of the world had a warm year, only some central areas of continents experiencing a cold year, overall. Precipitation anomalies were yet more complex, but the signal for anthropogenic climate change is clear. Our need to get reliable data on river levels and the associated likelihood of flooding are laid out in Colin Clark's A 247-year flood record on the upper Stour, Dorset, UK. The relatively short records we have for the levels of many rivers in the UK makes planning and preparation for flooding difficult, but this paper addresses the issue, using the long data record from the Stour, carefully describing the difficulties associated with any lack of full understanding of the response of rivers to rainfall. It is a well-established tenet of climatology that the mid-latitude westerlies bring warmer, wetter conditions than might otherwise be expected in the countries of the western continental margins. The warmth is related to the temperature of the sea surface, so variability of sea-surface temperatures in the North Atlantic are a significant influence on the climate of Ireland, as described by G. D. McCarthy, E. Gleeson and S. Walsh in The influence of ocean variations on the climate of Ireland. In his letter: The narrow cold-frontal rainband of 22/23 November 2013 C. Kidd adds to the information presented by Martin Young in his paper in the October 2014 issue: An unusual case of line convection - the birth of a classical cold front over the UK, showing how good an example of 'linear convection' this was. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We begin this month with an examination of lightning over the area surrounding the British Isles by Derek Elsom, Sven‐Erik Enno, Andrew Horseman and Jonathan Webb: ‘Compiling lightning counts for the UK land area and an assessment of the lightning risk facing UK inhabitants’ on p. 171. Derek and his co‐authors present the difference between data for the ‘UK service area’ and ‘UK land area’ to give a more realistic estimate of the risk of lightning strike for the British population than is often presented in the press. The results are informative in this well‐presented paper. On p. 179, we move onto ‘Daily weather in Dublin 1716–1734: the diary of Isaac Butler’ by MG Sanderson. Weather diaries kept in the early days of weather observation are a valuable addition to our knowledge of long‐term climate, and Isaac Butler's records were meticulous, albeit non‐instrumental. There is a long‐standing need for instruments – located at specific sites – that may provide early warning of lightning – especially for aviation, construction and sport. On p. 187, Alec Bennett describes a new system to assist in the production of lightning warnings in ‘Warning of imminent lightning using single‐site meteorological observations’. Although the effects of the monsoon are very variable in Pakistan, its effects are important, particularly given the shrinking glaciers of the western Himalaya. In ‘Evaluation of statistical downscaling models using pattern and dependence structure in the monsoon‐dominated region of Pakistan’ on p. 193, Firdos Khan, Shaukat Ali and Jürgen Pilz look at this variability using observations and down‐scaled data from large‐scale climate models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This month’s issue focuses on the meteorological effects of solar eclipses using data collected in the UK on 20 March 2015 and the USA on 21 August 2017. We begin with Edward Hanna’s examination of data from stations run by amateur enthusiasts, most of them in the Climatological Observers’ Link network. ‘Meteorological effects of the 20 March 2015 solar eclipse over the United Kingdom’ on p. 71 builds on the observations made at Met Office stations, published in Clark ( ) and Hanna et al. ( ). The observations show a high degree of consistency and the reduction in solar radiation had a strong signal in all parts of the UK, even where there were cloudy skies in most southern, as well as many northern and eastern areas. It also adds to the effects reported in this journal, following the eclipse of 11 August 1999 (Hanna, ). Bob Bourton’s short contribution ‘The thermal effects noticed at Heathrow Airport during the partial solar eclipse of 20 March 2015 ‘on p. 81 looks at the effects of the 2015 eclipse at Heathrow Airport. The range of instruments available across the airport and in roads leading to it gives further insight into the temperature and radiation changes during the obscuration of 85% of the sun’s disk in the west of London. On p. 90, we move to the observations made in the USA under the swathe of total or near‐total eclipse on 21 August 2017 in ‘Meteorological impacts of the total solar eclipse of 21 August 2017’, as reported by Stephen Burt. The data from sites run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, ) are supplemented by observations made by Stephen Burt near Jackson, Wyoming. Because the path of this eclipse crossed much of the USA and could be observed at least partially in all parts of the country, this was probably the best observed eclipse in history. Under clear skies, falls of about 5 degC were seen, accompanied by a fall in wind speed, now known from observations on both sides of the Atlantic to be a significant effect of this short‐duration phenomenon. We also include a seasonally‐appropriate look at the effects of year‐to‐year weather on plants and animals on p. 86. Ian Strangeways’ paper ‘Phenology: plants and animals as meteorological sensors’, gives us an overview of this subject, which used to be one of the activities of the Royal Meteorological Society. He includes the history of its development in the UK, as well as its value in weather science and our knowledge of the effects of changing climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]