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We investigate the initialization of Northern-hemisphere sea ice in the global climate model ECHAM/MPI-OM by assimilating sea-ice concentration data. The analysis updates for concentration are given by Newtonian relaxation, and we discuss different ways of specifying the analysis updates for mean thickness. Because the conservation of mean ice thickness or actual ice thickness in the analysis updates leads to poor assimilation performance, we introduce a proportional dependence between concentration and mean thickness analysis updates. Assimilation with these proportional meanthickness analysis updates significantly reduces assimilation error both in identical-twin experiments and when assimilating sea-ice observations, reducing the concentration error by a factor of four to six, and the thickness error by a factor of two. To understand the physical aspects of assimilation errors, we construct a simple prognostic model of the sea-ice thermodynamics, and analyse its response to the assimilation. We find that the strong dependence of thermodynamic ice growth on ice concentration necessitates an adjustment of mean ice thickness in the analysis update. To understand the statistical aspects of assimilation errors, we study the model background error covariance between ice concentration and ice thickness. We find that the spatial structure of covariances is best represented by the proportional mean-thickness analysis updates. Both physical and statistical evidence supports the experimental finding that proportional mean-thickness updates are superior to the other two methods considered and enable us to assimilate sea ice in a global climate model using simple Newtonian relaxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The soils of the Northern Hemisphere permafrost region are estimated to contain 1100 to 1500 Pg of carbon (Pg C). A substantial fraction of this carbon has been frozen and therefore protected from microbial decay for millennia. As anthropogenic climate warming progresses much of this permafrost is expected to thaw. Here we conduct perturbed physics experiments on a climate model of intermediate complexity, with an improved permafrost carbon module, to estimate with formal uncertainty bounds the release of carbon from permafrost soils by year 2100 and 2300. We estimate that by 2100 the permafrost region may release between 56 (13 to 118) Pg C under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 2.6 and 102 (27 to 199) Pg C under RCP 8.5, with substantially more to be released under each scenario by year 2300. A subset of 25 model variants were projected 8000 years into the future under continued RCP 4.5 and 8.5 forcing. Under the high forcing scenario the permafrost carbon pool decays away over several thousand years. Under the moderate scenario forcing a remnant near-surface permafrost region persists in the high Arctic which develops a large permafrost carbon pool, leading to global recovery of the pool beginning in mid third millennium of the common era (CE). Overall our simulations suggest that the permafrost carbon cycle feedback to climate change will make a significant but not cataclysmic contribution to climate change over the next centuries and millennia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some of the world's biggest countries have areas covered by permafrost, among them Russia, the United States, Canada and China. Permafrost, the soil that was once considered permanently frozen, has been thawing fast while releasing carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. This paper explains what permafrost is and analyses the impact of its subsidence. Official reports from governments and prestigious international organisations were examined along with resources from scientific journals. Notably global warming is amplified, economy is at risk by infrastructure failure and human health is endangered by the hidden diseases inside permafrost. Furthermore, this paper, apart from identifying the significance of the problem, provides possible solutions to counter permafrost thawing and ensure the safety of the people. Suggestions are being proposed, among them, the establishment and funding of permafrost scientific networks and permafrost insurance for the directly affected people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Browning of inland waters has been noted over large parts of the Northern Hemisphere and is a phenomenon with both ecological and societal consequences. The increase in water color is generally ascribed to increasing amounts of dissolved organic matter of terrestrial origin. However, oftentimes the increase in water color is larger than that of organic matter, implying that changes in the amount of organic matter alone cannot explain the enhanced water color. Water color is known to be affected also by the quality of organic matter and the prevalence of iron. Here we investigated trends in water color, organic matter and iron between 1972 and 2010 in 30 rivers draining into the Swedish cost, and performed a laboratory iron addition experiment to natural waters, to evaluate the role of iron and organic matter in determining water color. By comparing the effect of iron additions on water color in the experiment, to variation in water color and iron concentration in the monitoring data, we show that iron can explain a significant share of the variation in water color (on average 25 %), especially in the rivers in the north of Sweden (up to 74 %). Further more, positive trends for iron are seen in 27 of 30 rivers (21-468 %) and the increase in iron is larger than that of organic matter, indicating that iron and organic matter concentrations are controlled by similar but not identical processes. We speculate that increasing iron concentrations can be caused by changes in redox conditions, that mean that more anoxic water with high concentrations of soluble FeII are feeding into the surface waters. More studies are needed about why iron is increasing so strongly, since both causes and consequences are partly different from those of increasing organic matter content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of climate change, rainfall regimes became more extreme over the course of the 20th century, characterised by fewer and larger rainfall events. Such changes are expected to continue throughout the current century. The effect of changes in the temporal distribution of rainfall on ecosystem carbon fluxes is poorly understood, with most available information coming from experimental studies of grassland ecosystems. Here, continuous measurements of ecosystem carbon fluxes and precipitation from the worldwide FLUXNET network of eddy-covariance sites are exploited to investigate the effects of differences in rainfall distribution on the carbon balance of seasonally water-limited shrubland and forest sites. Once the strong dependence of ecosystem fluxes on total annual rainfall amount is accounted for, results show that sites with more extreme rainfall distributions have significantly lower gross productivity, slightly lower ecosystem respiration and consequently a smaller net ecosystem productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The boreal forest is the world’s largest terrestrial biome, covering all continents in the northern hemisphere. Much research has focused on the effects of forest management and climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem level processes of the boreal forest. However, even though climate change and the increasing rate of resource exploitation are likely to intensify the arrival and establishment of exotic species with the potential to become invasive, the boreal forest continues to be viewed as inhospitable to incoming species and we have little understanding of its invasive species status. We reviewed the literature and compiled information on the current status of invasive species across all taxa present in the North American boreal forest. We found that an increasing number of exotic plants, insects, earthworms, slugs and pathogens are establishing in the boreal forest. Research is scarce and their ecological effects are poorly understood. However, given that some of the reported species represent a major driver of change in many ecosystems globally, we expect that this review will provide direction for invasive species research as well as preventative measures aimed at better understanding and conserving Earth’s largest terrestrial biome. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The rareness and inhomogeneity of the data points cause difficulties in the reconstruction of past average temperature. Optimal regional averaging is a method that can overcome these difficulties and obtain the average temperature of target area by means of optimal weights using limited temperature data. In this paper, the average temperature in the Northern Hemisphere is calculated by the optimal regional averaging method using two types of data: temperature data from Climatic Research Unit from 1901 to 2000 and maximum latewood density dataset of tree from 1500 to 1949. Five, ten, fifteen data points from CRU and forty data points from MXD are used in our research. The results show that even with the relatively less data used in this reconstruction, the method allows the reconstruction of the average temperature of the Northern Hemisphere more accurately, which provides the temperature information for palaeoclimate reconstruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a comment on a 2017 paper by Cheung et al., Kravtsov states that the results of Cheung et al. are invalidated by errors in the method used to estimate internal variability in historical surface temperatures, which involves using the ensemble mean of simulations from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) to estimate the forced signal. Kravtsov claims that differences between the forced signals in the individual models and as defined by the multimodel ensemble mean lead to errors in the assessment of internal variability in both model simulations and the instrumental record. Kravtsov proposes a different method, which instead uses CMIP5 models with at least four realizations to define the forced component. Here, it is shown that the conclusions of Cheung et al. are valid regardless of whether the method of Cheung et al. or that of Kravtsov is applied. Furthermore, many of the points raised by Kravtsov are discussed in Cheung et al., and the disagreements of Kravtsov appear to be mainly due to a misunderstanding of the aims of Cheung et al. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zonal and meridional surface temperature gradients are considered to be determinants of large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns. However, there has been limited investigation of these gradients as diagnostic aids. Here, the twentieth-century variability in the Northern Hemisphere equator-to-pole temperature gradient (EPG) and the ocean-land temperature contrast (OLC) is explored. A secular trend in decreasing EPG and OLC is noted. Decadal and interannual (ENSO-related) variations in the joint distribution of EPG and OLC are identified, hinting at multistable climate states that may be indigenous to the climate or due to changing boundary forcings. The NH circulation patterns for cases in the tails of the joint distribution of EPG and OLC are also seen to be different. Given this context, this paper extends past efforts to develop insights into jet stream dynamics using the Lorenz-1984 model, which is forced directly and only by EPG and OLC. The joint probability distribution of jet stream and eddy energy, conditional on EPG and OLC scenarios, is investigated. The scenarios correspond to (i) warmer versus colder climate conditions and (ii) polarized ENSO phases. The latter scenario involves the use of a heuristic ENSO model to drive the Lorenz-1984 model via a modulation of the EPG or the OLC. As with GCMs, the low-order model reveals that the response to El Niño forcing is not similar to an anthropogenic warming signature. The potential uses of EPG and OLC as macro-level indicators of climate change and variability and for comparing results across GCMs and observations are indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to provide a new blocking definition with applicability to observations and model simulations. An updated review of previous blocking detection indices is provided and some of their implications and caveats discussed. A novel blocking index is proposed by reconciling two traditional approaches based on anomaly and absolute flows. Blocks are considered from a complementary perspective as a signature in the anomalous height field capable of reversing the meridional jet-based height gradient in the total flow. The method succeeds in identifying 2-D persistent anomalies associated to a weather regime in the total flow with blockage of the westerlies. The new index accounts for the duration, intensity, extension, propagation, and spatial structure of a blocking event. In spite of its increased complexity, the detection efficiency of the method is improved without hampering the computational time. Furthermore, some misleading identification problems and artificial assumptions resulting from previous single blocking indices are avoided with the new approach. The characteristics of blocking for 40 years of reanalysis (1950-1989) over the Northern Hemisphere are described from the perspective of the new definition and compared to those resulting from two standard blocking indices and different critical thresholds. As compared to single approaches, the novel index shows a better agreement with reported proxies of blocking activity, namely climatological regions of simultaneous wave amplification and maximum band-pass filtered height standard deviation. An additional asset of the method is its adaptability to different data sets. As critical thresholds are specific of the data set employed, the method is useful for observations and model simulations of different resolutions, temporal lengths and time variant basic states, optimizing its value as a tool for model validation. Special attention has been paid on the devise of an objective scheme easily applicable to General Circulation Models where observational thresholds may be unsuitable due to the presence of model bias. Part II of this study deals with a specific implementation of this novel method to simulations of the ECHO-G global climate model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is an issue of great attention but yet not very clear whether lightning activities increase or decrease on a warmer world. Reeve et al. presented that lightning activities in global land and the Northern Hemisphere land have positive response to the increase of wet bulb temperature at 1000hPa. is this positive response restricted only to wet bulb temperature or in land? What is the response of global lightning activities (in both land and ocean) to the global surface air temperature variation like? This paper, based on the 5-year or 8-year OTD/LIS satellite-based lightning detecting data and the NCEP reanalysis data, makes a reanalysis of the response of the global and regional lightning activities to temperature variations. The results show that on the inter-annual time scale the global total flash rate has positive response to the variation in global surface air temperature, with the sensitivity of 17±7% K-1. Also, the seasonal mean flash rate of continents all over the world and that of continents in the Northern Hemisphere have sensitive positive response to increase of global surface air temperature and wet bulb temperature, with the sensitivity of about 13±5% K-1. a bit lower than estimation of 40% K-1 in Reeve et al. However, the Southern Hemisphere and other areas like the tropics show no significant correlation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several numerical simulations were performed, using a global climate model that includes a realistic land surface model, to investigate the impact of Asian tropical vegetation changes on the climate. The control simulation, under conditions of the actual vegetation, and three vegetation-change impact experiments were performed. The horizontal resolution of the model used in these simulations was finer than those of the models used in previous vegetation-change impact studies. In, which is a companion of this paper, the results of the Northern Hemisphere summer June–July–August (JJA) case were described. In the present paper, the results of the analysis concern the Northern Hemisphere winter; that is, the December–January–February (DJF) case are discussed as Part II. It was clarified, from the results of the bare soil and C4 grass experiments, that the decrease in the roughness length, and from the results of the green-less experiment, that the decrease in the latent heat flux exert strong influences on horizontal and convective atmospheric circulations and the distribution of precipitation. Other energy and water balances at the land surface are also significantly influenced by the vegetation changes. The vegetation changes were implemented only in the Asian tropical region. There were, however, possible influences of the vegetation change on the midlatitude atmospheric circulation. It was considered that the vegetation changes from the forest type to grassland or bare soil induced modifications in the Hadley and Walker circulations. In particular, the divergence/convergence anomaly pattern that appeared at the upper-atmospheric level in the C4 grass experiment was very similar to that of an ENSO event. The height anomalies at the 500-hPa level were also similar to those found in an ENSO event. The possibility exists that the deforestation of the Asian tropical region could induce similar teleconnections as those associated with ENSO events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kretzschmar et al., in a comment in 2017, use the spread in the output of aerosol-climate models to argue that the models refute the hypothesis (presented in a paper by Stevens in 2015) that for the mid-twentieth-century warming to be consistent with observations, then the present-day aerosol forcing, must be less negative than −1 W m−2. The main point of contention is the nature of the relationship between global SO2 emissions and In contrast to the concave (log-linear) relationship used by Stevens and in earlier studies, whereby becomes progressively less sensitive to SO2 emissions, some models suggest a convex relationship, which would imply a less negative lower bound. The model that best exemplifies this difference, and that is most clearly in conflict with the hypothesis of Stevens, does so because of an implausible aerosol response to the initial rise in anthropogenic aerosol precursor emissions in East and South Asia-already in 1975 this model's clear-sky reflectance from anthropogenic aerosol over the North Pacific exceeds present-day estimates of the clear-sky reflectance by the total aerosol. The authors perform experiments using a new (observationally constrained) climatology of anthropogenic aerosols to further show that the effects of changing patterns of aerosol and aerosol precursor emissions during the late twentieth century have, for the same global emissions, relatively little effect on These findings suggest that the behavior Kretzschmar et al. identify as being in conflict with the lower bound in Stevens arises from an implausible relationship between SO2 emissions and and thus provides little basis for revising this lower bound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the northern hemisphere, there are six permanent or semi-permanent atmospheric activity centers, namely the Icelandic Low, Aleutian Low, India Low, Mongolia High, North Pacific High, and North Atlantic High. The first four are semi-permanent action centers and the last two are permanent circulation systems. The India Low exists only during the summer. By using 160 years (1850-2009) of monthly mean sea level pressure data from the Hadley Centre in the UK, we conduct a comprehensive study of the five boreal winter atmospheric centers of action (ACAs). Based on a unified definition and a method determined in previous studies, we calculate the indices of areal coverage (S), intensity (P), and position of action center ( λ , φ ) for each of these five ACAs. Through an in-depth analysis of these indices and their relationships with climate variables, we evaluate the indices by describing and explaining areal climate anomalies, particularly precipitation and temperature anomalies in China. We show that (1) ACAs significantly influence the climate anomalies of surrounding areas (2) the influences of oceanic ACAs are larger and the intensity anomalies of ACAs have a greater impact than their location displacement, and (3) ACAs exert more control on temperature than they do on precipitation. For the two ACAs over the north Atlantic, the impacts of their intensities on the anomalies of temperature and precipitation are similar. For the two ACAs over the north Pacific, their influences are almost the opposite. The most influential ACA for climate anomalies in China during the boreal winter is HMO. When HMO is stronger, China has a colder winter and it is wetter in the north. With stronger ACAs in the upstream, i.e., the Icelandic Low and North Atlantic High, northern China has a warmer winter. The ACAs over the north Pacific exert little influence on climate anomalies in China during winter. The analyses presented in this paper provide a set of useful indices for defining and describing ACAs, and they suggest insightful applications for these indices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Observational studies and modeling experiments illustrate that variability in October Eurasian snow cover extent impacts boreal wintertime conditions over the Northern Hemisphere (NH) through a dynamical pathway involving the stratosphere and changes in the surface-based Arctic Oscillation (AO). In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive study of the Eurasian snow-AO relationship in twenty coupled climate models run under pre-industrial conditions from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). Our analyses indicate that the coupled climate models, individually and collectively, do not capture well the observed snow-AO relationship. The models lack a robust lagged response between October Eurasian snow cover and several NH wintertime variables (e.g., vertically propagating waves and geopotential heights). Additionally, the CMIP5 models do not simulate the observed spatial distribution and statistics of boreal fall snow cover across the NH including Eurasia. However, when analyzing individual 40-year time slices of the models, there are periods of time in select models when the observed snow-AO relationship emerges. This finding suggests that internal variability may play a significant role in the observed relationship. Further analysis demonstrates that the models poorly capture the downward propagation of stratospheric anomalies into the troposphere, a key facet of NH wintertime climate variability irrespective of the influence of Eurasian snow cover. A weak downward propagation signal may be related to several factors including too few stratospheric vortex disruptions and weaker-than-observed tropospheric wave driving. The analyses presented can be used as a roadmap for model evaluations in future studies involving NH wintertime climate variability, including those considering future climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the physical processes controlling how synoptic midlatitude temperature variability near the surface changes with climate. Because synoptic temperature variability is primarily generated by advection, it can be related to mean potential temperature gradients and mixing lengths near the surface. Scaling arguments show that the reduction of meridional potential temperature gradients that accompanies polar amplification of global warming leads to a reduction of the synoptic temperature variance near the surface. This is confirmed in simulations of a wide range of climates with an idealized GCM. In comprehensive climate simulations (CMIP5), Arctic amplification of global warming similarly entails a large-scale reduction of the near-surface temperature variance in Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes, especially in winter. The probability density functions of synoptic near-surface temperature variations in midlatitudes are statistically indistinguishable from Gaussian, both in reanalysis data and in a range of climates simulated with idealized and comprehensive GCMs. This indicates that changes in mean values and variances suffice to account for changes even in extreme synoptic temperature variations. Taken together, the results indicate that Arctic amplification of global warming leads to even less frequent cold outbreaks in Northern Hemisphere winter than a shift toward a warmer mean climate implies by itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of why, in the annual-mean, the northern hemisphere (NH) is warmer than the southern hemisphere (SH) is addressed, revisiting an 1870 paper by James Croll. We first show that ocean is warmer than land in general which, acting alone, would make the SH, with greater ocean fraction, warmer. Croll was aware of this and thought it was caused by greater specific humidity and greenhouse trapping over ocean than over land. However, for any given temperature, it is shown that greenhouse trapping is actually greater over land. Instead, oceans are warmer than land because of the smaller surface albedo. However, hemispheric differences in planetary albedo are negligible because the impact of differences in land-sea fraction are offset by the SH ocean and land reflecting more than their NH counterparts. In the absence of a role for albedo differences it is shown that, in agreement with Croll, northward cross-equatorial ocean heat transport (X-OHT) is critical for the warmer NH. This is examined in a simple box model based on the energy budget of each hemisphere. The hemispheric difference forced by X-OHT is enhanced by the positive water vapor-greenhouse feedback, and is partly compensated by the southward atmospheric energy transport. Due to uncertainties in the ocean data, a range of X-OHT is considered. A X-OHT of larger than 0.5 PW is needed to explain the warmer NH solely by X-OHT. For smaller X-OHT, a larger basic state greenhouse trapping in the NH, conceived as imposed by continental geometry, needs to be imposed. Numerical experiments with a GCM coupled to a slab ocean provide evidence that X-OHT is fundamentally important in determining the hemispheric differences in temperature. Therefore, despite some modifications to his theory, analysis of modern data confirms Croll's 140-year-old theory that the warmer NH is partly because of northward X-OHT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sea-level records show large glacial-interglacial changes over the past million years, which on these time scales are related to changes of ice volume on land. During the Pleistocene, sea-level changes induced by ice volume are largely caused by the waxing and waning of the large ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere. However, the individual contributions of ice in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere are poorly constrained. In this study, for the first time a fully coupled system of four 3-D ice-sheet models is used, simulating glaciations on Eurasia, North America, Greenland and Antarctica. The ice-sheet models use a combination of the shallow ice and shelf approximations to determine sheet, shelf and sliding velocities. The framework consists of an inverse forward modelling approach to derive a self-consistent record of temperature and ice volume from deep-sea benthic δO data over the past 1 million years, a proxy for ice volume and temperature. It is shown that for both eustatic sea level and sea water δO changes, the Eurasian and North American ice sheets are responsible for the largest part of the variability. The combined contribution of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets is about 10 % for sea level and about 20 % for sea water δO during glacial maxima. However, changes in interglacials are mainly caused by melt of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, with an average time lag of 4 kyr between melt and temperature. Furthermore, we have tested the separate response to changes in temperature and sea level for each ice sheet, indicating that ice volume can be significantly influenced by changes in eustatic sea level alone. Hence, showing the importance of a simultaneous simulation of all four ice sheets. This paper describes the first complete simulation of global ice-volume variations over the late Pleistocene with the possibility to model changes above and below present-day ice volume, constrained by observations of benthic δO proxy data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stratospheric ozone recovery is expected to figure prominently in twenty-first century climate change. In a recent paper, Hu et al. (2011) argue that one impact of ozone recovery will be to enhance the warming of the surface-troposphere system produced by increases in wellmixed greenhouse gases. Furthermore, this enhanced warming would be strongest in the Northern Hemisphere, which is surprising since previous studies have consistently shown the effects of stratospheric ozone changes to be most pronounced in the Southern Hemisphere. Hu et al. (2011) base their claims largely on differences in the simulated temperature change between two groups of CMIP3 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 3) climate models, one group which included stratospheric ozone recovery in its twenty-first century simulations and a second group which did not. Both groups of models were forced with the same increases in well-mixed greenhouse gases according to the A1B emissions scenario. In the current work, we compare the surface temperature responses of the same two groups of models in a different experiment in which atmospheric CO2 was increased by 1% per year until doubling. We find remarkably similar differences in the simulated surface temperature change between the two sets of models as Hu et al. (2011) found for the A1B experiment, suggesting that the enhanced warming which they attribute to stratospheric ozone recovery is actually a reflection of different responses of the two model groups to greenhouse gas forcing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Variations of land surface parameters over the Tibetan Plateau have great importance on local energy and water cycles, the Asian monsoon, and climate change studies. In this paper, the NOAA/NASA Pathfinder Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Land (PAL) dataset is used to retrieve the land surface temperature (LST), the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and albedo, from 1982 to 2000. Simultaneously, meteorological parameters and land surface heat fluxes are acquired from the 40-yr European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Re-Analysis (ERA-40) dataset and the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS), respectively. Results show that from 1982 to 2000 both the LST and the surface air temperature increased on the Tibetan Plateau (TP). The rate of increase of the LST was 0.26±0.16 K decade−1 and that of the surface air temperature was 0.29 ± 0.16 K decade−1, which exceeded the increase in the Northern Hemisphere (0.054 K decade−1). The plateau-wide annual mean precipitation increased at 2.54 mm decade−1, which indicates that the TP is becoming wetter. The 10-m wind speed decreased at about 0.05±0.03 m s−1 decade−1 from 1982 to 2000, which manifests a steady decline of the Asian monsoon wind. Due to the diminishing ground-air temperature gradient and subdued surface wind speed, the sensible heat flux showed a decline of 3.37 ± 2.19 W m−2 decade−1. The seasonal cycle of land surface parameters could clearly be linked to the patterns of the Asian monsoon. The spatial patterns of sensible heat flux, latent heat flux, and their variance could also be recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The effect of a warmer climate on the properties of extratropical cyclones is investigated using simulations of the ECHAM5 global climate model at resolutions of T213 (60 km) and T319 (40 km). Two periods representative of the end of the 20th and 21st centuries are investigated using the IPCC A1B scenario. The focus of the paper is on precipitation for the NH summer and winter seasons, however results from vorticity and winds are also presented. Similar number of events are identified at both resolutions. There are, however, a greater number of extreme precipitation events in the higher resolution run. The difference between maximum intensity distributions is shown to be statistically significant using a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. A generalized Pareto distribution is used to analyse changes in extreme precipitation and wind events. In both resolutions, there is an increase in the number of extreme precipitation events in a warmer climate for all seasons, together with a reduction in return period. This is not associated with any increased vertical velocity, or with any increase in wind intensity in the winter and spring. However, there is an increase in wind extremes in the summer and autumn associated with tropical cyclones migrating into the extratropics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Arctic has undergone substantial changes over the last few decades in various cryospheric and derivative systems and processes. Of these, the Arctic sea ice regime has seen some of the most rapid change and is one of the most visible markers of Arctic change outside the scientific community. This has drawn considerable attention not only from the natural sciences, but increasingly, from the political and commercial sectors as they begin to grapple with the problems and opportunities that are being presented. The possible impacts of past and projected changes in Arctic sea ice, especially as it relates to climatic response, are of particular interest and have been the subject of increasing research activity. A review of the current knowledge of the role of sea ice in the climate system is therefore timely. We present a review that examines both the current state of understanding, as regards the impacts of sea-ice loss observed to date, and climate model projections, to highlight hypothesised future changes and impacts on storm tracks and the North Atlantic Oscillation. Within the broad climate-system perspective, the topics of storminess and large-scale variability will be specifically considered. We then consider larger-scale impacts on the climatic system by reviewing studies that have focused on the interaction between sea-ice extent and the North Atlantic Oscillation. Finally, an overview of the representation of these topics in the literature in the context of IPCC climate projections is presented. While most agree on the direction of Arctic sea-ice change, the rates amongst the various projections vary greatly. Similarly, the response of storm tracks and climate variability are uncertain, exacerbated possibly by the influence of other factors. A variety of scientific papers on the relationship between sea-ice changes and atmospheric variability have brought to light important aspects of this complex topic. Examples are an overall reduction in the number of Arctic winter storms, a northward shift of mid-latitude winter storms in the Pacific and a delayed negative NAO-like response in autumn/winter to a reduced Arctic sea-ice cover (at least in some months). This review paper discusses this research and the disagreements, bringing about a fresh perspective on this issue. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Northern Hemisphere extended winter mean stratospheric vortex alternates between a strong and a weak state, which is manifested in a statistically significant bimodal distribution. In the end of the 1970s a regime change took place, increasing the frequency of the strong phase relative to the weak phase. This paper investigates the connection between the regime behavior of the vortex and the equatorial quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) in three different datasets. Although there are some differences between the datasets, they agree regarding the general picture. It is found that stratospheric equatorial wind between 70 and 8 hPa shows a bimodal structure in the Northern Hemisphere winter. Such bimodality is nontrivial as it requires only weak variability in the amplitude. Unimodality is found above 8 hPa, where the semiannual oscillation dominates. A strong coincidence is found between strong (weak) vortex winters and winter in the westerly (easterly) QBO regime. Furthermore, the change of the vortex in the late 1970s can be related to a change in the QBO from a period with strong bimodality to a period with weak bimodality. Careful consideration of the statistical significance shows that this change in the QBO can be a random process simply related to the annual sampling of the QBO. Finally, previous findings of phase locking between the QBO and the annual cycle are considered; it is shown that the phase locking is related to the seasonal variations in the bimodality of the QBO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Alpine glacier fluctuations provide important paleoclimate proxies where other records such as ice cores, tree rings, and speleothems are not available. About 20 years have passed since a special issue of Quaternary Science Reviews was published to review the worldwide evidence for Holocene glacier fluctuations. Since that time, numerous sites have been discovered, new dating techniques have been developed, and refined climatic hypotheses have been proposed that contribute to a better understanding of Earth''s climate system. This special volume includes 12 papers on Holocene and latest Pleistocene alpine glacier fluctuations that update the seven review papers from 1988. Major findings of these 12 papers include the following: many, but certainly not all, alpine areas record glacier advances during the Younger Dryas cold interval. Most areas in the Northern Hemisphere witnessed maximum glacier recession during the early Holocene, with some glaciers disappearing, although a few sites yield possible evidence for advances during the 8.2ka cooling event. In contrast, some alpine areas in the Southern Hemisphere saw glaciers reach their maximum post-glacial extents during the early to middle Holocene. In many parts of the globe, glaciers reformed and/or advanced during Neoglaciation, beginning as early as 6.5ka. Neoglacial advances commonly occurred with millennial-scale oscillations, with many alpine glaciers reaching their maximum Holocene extents during the Little Ice Age of the last few centuries. Although the pattern and rhythm of these glacier fluctuations remain uncertain, improved spatial coverage coupled with tighter age control for many events will provide a means to assess forcing mechanisms for Holocene and latest Pleistocene glacial activity and perhaps predict glacier response to future impacts from human-induced climate change. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Based on the availability of hemispheric gridded data sets from observations, analysis and global climate models, objective cyclone identification methods were developed and applied to these data sets. Due to the large amount of investigation methods combined with the variety of different datasets, a multitude of results exist, not only for the recent climate period but also for the next century, assuming anthropogenic changed conditions. Different thresholds, different physical quantities, and considerations of different atmospheric vertical levels add to a picture that is difficult to combine into a common view of cyclones, their variability and trends, in the real world and in GCM studies. Thus, this paper will give a comprehensive review of the actual knowledge on climatologies of mid-latitude cyclones for the Northern and Southern Hemisphere for the present climate and for its possible changes under anthropogenic climate conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine the effects of latitude and life history on the timing of relationships between satellite measures of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and ground-based measures of tree-ring width in forests at mid- and high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Results indicate a correlation between NDVI and tree rings over the entire growing season for all areas analyzed. For sites south of 40°N, a correlation appears in early spring and late fall while a correlation appears during summer months north of 40°N. For conifers, the correlation appears in summer while deciduous trees show the relationship during early spring and late fall. Of these two correlations, the effect of life history seems to dominate the effect of latitude. The timing of these correlations may help clarify the relationship between climate and tree rings and the effect of canopy duration on carbon uptake by trees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to explore the influence of anthropogenic land use on the climate system during the last millennium, a set of experiments is performed with an Earth system model of intermediate complexity—the McGill Paleoclimate Model (MPM-2). The present paper mainly focuses on biogeophysical effects of historical land cover changes. A dynamic scenario of deforestation is described based on changes in cropland fraction (RF99). The model simulates a decrease in global mean annual temperature in the range of 0.09–0.16°C, especially 0.14–0.22°C in Northern Hemisphere during the last 300 years. The responses of climate system to GHGs concentration changes are also calculated for comparisons. Now, afforestation is becoming an important choice for the enhancement of terrestrial carbon sequestration and adjustment of regional climate. The results indicate that biogeophysical effects of land cover changes cannot be neglected in the assessments of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a nonlinear dry model, forced by fixed radiative forcing alone, has been constructed to simulate the Northern Hemisphere winter storm tracks. A procedure has been devised to iterate the radiative equilibrium temperature profile such that at the end of the iterations the model climate closely resembles the desired target climate. This iterative approach is applied to simulate the climatological storm tracks in January. It is found that, when the three-dimensional temperature distribution in the model resembles the observed distribution, the model storm tracks are much too weak. It is hypothesized that this is due to the fact that eddy development is suppressed in a dry atmosphere, owing to the lack of latent heat release in the ascending warm air. To obtain storm tracks with realistic amplitudes, the static stability of the target climate is reduced to simulate the enhancement in baroclinic energy conversion due to latent heat release. With this modification, the storm tracks in the model simulation closely resemble those observed except that the strength of the Atlantic storm track is slightly weaker than observed. The model, when used as a forecast model, also gives high-quality forecasts of the evolution of observed eddies. The iterative approach is applied to force the model to simulate climate anomalies associated with ENSO and the interannual variations of the winter Pacific jet stream/storm tracks. The results show that the model not only succeeds in simulating the climatology of storm tracks, but also produces realistic simulations of storm track anomalies when the model climate is forced to resemble observed climate anomalies. An extended run of the control experiment is conducted to generate monthly mean flow and storm track statistics. These statistics are used to build a linear statistical model relating storm track anomalies to mean flow anomalies. This model performs well when used to hindcast observed storm track anomalies based on observed mean flow anomalies, showing that the storm track/mean flow covariability in the model is realistic and that storm track distribution is not sensitive to the exact form of the applied forcings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the two factors controlling Northern Hemisphere springtime snow albedo feedback in transient climate change are isolated and quantified based on scenario runs of 17 climate models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report. The first factor is the dependence of planetary albedo on surface albedo, representing the atmosphere's attenuation effect on surface albedo anomalies. It is potentially a major source of divergence in simulations of snow albedo feedback because of large differences in simulated cloud fields in Northern Hemisphere land areas. To calculate the dependence, an analytical model governing planetary albedo was developed. Detailed validations of the analytical model for two of the simulations are shown, version 3 of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM3) and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory global coupled Climate Model 2.0 (CM2.0), demonstrating that it facilitates a highly accurate calculation of the dependence of planetary albedo on surface albedo given readily available simulation output. In all simulations it is found that surface albedo anomalies are attenuated by approximately half in Northern Hemisphere land areas as they are transformed into planetary albedo anomalies. The intermodel standard deviation in the dependence of planetary albedo on surface albedo is surprisingly small, less than 10% of the mean. Moreover, when an observational estimate of this factor is calculated by applying the same method to the satellite-based International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) data, it is found that most simulations agree with ISCCP values to within about 10%, despite further disagreements between observed and simulated cloud fields. This suggests that even large relative errors in simulated cloud fields do not result in significant error in this factor, enhancing confidence in climate models. The second factor, related exclusively to surface processes, is the change in surface albedo associated with an anthropogenically induced temperature change in Northern Hemisphere land areas. It exhibits much more intermodel variability. The standard deviation is about 1/3 of the mean, with the largest value being approximately 3 times larger than the smallest. Therefore this factor is unquestionably the main source of the large divergence in simulations of snow albedo feedback. To reduce the divergence, attention should be focused on differing parameterizations of snow processes, rather than intermodel variations in the attenuation effect of the atmosphere on surface albedo anomalies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have shown that ice duration in lakes and rivers over the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the 19th and 20th centuries in response to global warming. However, lake ice trends have not been well documented in Canada. Because of its size, considerable variability may exist in both freeze‐up and break‐up dates across the country. In this paper, results of the analysis of recent trends (1951–2000) in freeze‐up and break‐up dates across Canada are presented. Trends toward earlier break‐up dates are observed for most lakes during the time periods of analysis which encompass the 1990s. Freeze‐up dates, on the other hand, show few significant trends and a low degree of temporal coherence when compared with break‐up dates. These results are compared with trends in autumn and spring 0 °C isotherm dates over the time period 1966–95. Similar spatial and temporal patterns are observed, with generally significant trends toward earlier springs/break‐up dates over most of western Canada and little change in isotherm and freeze‐up dates over the majority of the country in autumn. Strong correlations (r > 0·5) between 0 °C isotherm dates and freeze‐up/break‐up dates at many locations across the country reveal the high synchrony of these variables. These results are also consistent with more recent observations of other cryospheric and atmospheric variables that indicate, in particular, a general trend toward earlier springs in the latter part of the 20th century. The results of this study provide further evidence of the robustness of lake ice as a proxy indicator of climate variability and change. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the interannual variations in the Northern Hemisphere winter storm tracks have been examined based on 51 winters (December-January-February) of NCEP-NCAR reanalysis data. The leading empirical orthogonal function (EOF) corresponds to the simultaneous strengthening/weakening of both the Pacific and Atlantic storm tracks. Interannual and month-to-month variations in the Pacific and Atlantic storm tracks are found to be significantly correlated. The principal component associated with the leading hemispheric EOF exhibits pronounced interdecadal variability. There appears to be a transition during the early 1970s from a weak storm track state prior to 1972/73 to a strong storm track state subsequently. Decadal mean storm track intensity during the 1990s is about 30% stronger than that during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The relationship between variations in storm track intensity and low-frequency (seasonal mean) flow anomalies has also been examined. It is shown that storm track variations and their associated seasonal mean flow anomalies are highly correlated. Relations to several other modes of interdecadal variability have also been explored. It is shown that part of the storm track variations may be related to the Arctic oscillation and part to the interdecadal ENSO-like variability. However, even when storm track variations that are linearly dependent on these other modes have been removed, substantial interdecadal variations still remain. In order to ascertain that the interdecadal variations have not been introduced into the reanalysis data by changes in the observation network, radiosonde observations along the storm track have been examined. Preliminary analyses suggest that the radiosonde observations are largely consistent with the reanalysis data, except for the possibility that biases in the reanalysis data may have led to an overestimation of the interdecadal variability. Unfortunately, since the peaks of the storm tracks lie over... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the reconstruction of European Atlantic storm events with the contribution of a new stormy reconstruction in its central part. Three marsh environments on the island of Yeu were chosen to identify disturbing storm events from the Mid- to Late Holocene with vibracore sampling, radiocarbon dating and sedimentary analysis. Nine probable intervals of high energy deposition in these low-transport-activity environments are estimated: 600–500, near 1590, 2100–1950, 2850–2350, 3500–3270, 5400–5370, 6650–6510, near 7000 and between 7670 and 7470 calibrated years before present (cal y BP). By comparison with sedimentological paleostorm studies, we confirm six European Atlantic storm events estimated at near 600–300, 1700–1100, 2900–2500, 3500–3300, 5500–5100 and 7700–7100 cal y BP, corresponding to worldwide Holocene cooling climatic periods. A comparison with other storminess reviews of worldwide main stormy coasts shows that Holocene storms can increase during global cooling periods in the northern hemisphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long-term monitoring of surface water quality has shown increasing concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) across a large part of the Northern Hemisphere. Several drivers have been implicated including climate change, land management change, nitrogen and sulphur deposition and CO 2 enrichment. Analysis of stream water data, supported by evidence from laboratory studies, indicates that an effect of declining sulphur deposition on catchment soil chemistry is likely to be the primary mechanism, but there are relatively few long term soil water chemistry records in the UK with which to investigate this, and other, hypotheses directly. In this paper, we assess temporal relationships between soil solution chemistry and parameters that have been argued to regulate DOC production and, using a unique set of co-located measurements of weather and bulk deposition and soil solution chemistry provided by the UK Environmental Change Network and the Intensive Forest Monitoring Level II Network. We used statistical non-linear trend analysis to investigate these relationships at 5 forested and 4 non-forested sites from 1993 to 2011. Most trends in soil solution DOC concentration were found to be non-linear. Significant increases in DOC occurred mostly prior to 2005. The magnitude and sign of the trends was associated qualitatively with changes in acid deposition, the presence/absence of a forest canopy, soil depth and soil properties. The strongest increases in DOC were seen in acidic forest soils and were most clearly linked to declining anthropogenic acid deposition, while DOC trends at some sites with westerly locations appeared to have been influenced by shorter-term hydrological variation. The results indicate that widespread DOC increases in surface waters observed elsewhere, are most likely dominated by enhanced mobilization of DOC in surficial organic horizons, rather than changes in the soil water chemistry of deeper horizons. While trends in DOC concentrations in surface horizons have flattened out in recent years, further increases may be expected as soil chemistry continues to adjust to declining inputs of acidity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale millennial length Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperature reconstructions have been progressively improved over the last 20 years as new datasets have been developed. This paper, and its companion (Part II, Anchukaitis et al. in prep ), details the latest tree-ring (TR) based NH land air temperature reconstruction from a temporal and spatial perspective. This work is the first product of a consortium called N-TREND ( N orthern Hemisphere Tre e-Ring N etwork D evelopment) which brings together dendroclimatologists to identify a collective strategy for improving large-scale summer temperature reconstructions. The new reconstruction, N-TREND2015, utilises 54 records, a significant expansion compared with previous TR studies, and yields an improved reconstruction with stronger statistical calibration metrics. N-TREND2015 is relatively insensitive to the compositing method and spatial weighting used and validation metrics indicate that the new record portrays reasonable coherence with large scale summer temperatures and is robust at all time-scales from 918 to 2004 where at least 3 TR records exist from each major continental mass. N-TREND2015 indicates a longer and warmer medieval period (∼900–1170) than portrayed by previous TR NH reconstructions and by the CMIP5 model ensemble, but with better overall agreement between records for the last 600 years. Future dendroclimatic projects should focus on developing new long records from data-sparse regions such as North America and eastern Eurasia as well as ensuring the measurement of parameters related to latewood density to complement ring-width records which can improve local based calibration substantially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debate over what influence (if any) solar variability has had on surface air temperature trends since the 19th century has been controversial. In this paper, we consider two factors which may have contributed to this controversy: 1. Several different solar variability datasets exist. While each of these datasets is constructed on plausible grounds, they often imply contradictory estimates for the trends in solar activity since the 19th century. 2. Although attempts have been made to account for non-climatic biases in previous estimates of surface air temperature trends, recent research by two of the authors has shown that current estimates are likely still affected by non-climatic biases, particularly urbanization bias. With these points in mind, we first review the debate over solar variability. We summarise the points of general agreement between most groups and the aspects which still remain controversial. We discuss possible future research which may help resolve the controversy of these aspects. Then, in order to account for the problem of urbanization bias, we compile a new estimate of Northern Hemisphere surface air temperature trends since 1881, using records from predominantly rural stations in the monthly Global Historical Climatology Network dataset. Like previous weather station-based estimates, our new estimate suggests that surface air temperatures warmed during the 1880s–1940s and 1980s–2000s. However, this new estimate suggests these two warming periods were separated by a pronounced cooling period during the 1950s–1970s and that the relative warmth of the mid-20th century warm period was comparable to the recent warm period. We then compare our weather station-based temperature trend estimate to several other independent estimates. This new record is found to be consistent with estimates of Northern Hemisphere Sea Surface Temperature (SST) trends, as well as temperature proxy-based estimates derived from glacier length records and from tree ring widths. However, the multi-model means of the recent Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) climate model hindcasts were unable to adequately reproduce the new estimate — although the modelling of certain volcanic eruptions did seem to be reasonably well reproduced. Finally, we compare our new composite to one of the solar variability datasets not considered by the CMIP5 climate models, i.e., Scafetta and Willson, 2014's update to the Hoyt and Schatten, 1993 dataset. A strong correlation is found between these two datasets, implying that solar variability has been the dominant influence on Northern Hemisphere temperature trends since at least 1881. We discuss the significance of this apparent correlation, and its implications for previous studies which have instead suggested that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide has been the dominant influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary A paper recently published in “Nature” finds that there is sufficient evidence to identify the effects of human activity on global temperature. The study is based on northern and southern hemispheres’ time series temperature from 1865 to 1994 and the econometric technique applied is Granger causality analysis. In this note, we make some critical remarks on the conclusions of this study which seem to be rather inconsistent from a methodological point of view. It is shown that a more accurate application of Granger causality analysis to this problem may not allow the same strong and unambiguous conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Over the last few decades, global warming has accelerated both the rate and magnitude of changes observed in many functional units of the Earth System. In this context, plankton are sentinel organisms because they are sensitive to subtle levels of changes in temperature and might help in identifying the current effects of climate change on pelagic ecosystems. In this paper, we performed a comparative approach in two regions of the North Atlantic (i.e. the Northeast Atlantic and the North Sea) to explore the relationships between changes in marine plankton, the regional physico-chemical environment and large-scale hydro-climatic forcing using four key indices: the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), the East Atlantic (EA) pattern and Northern Hemisphere Temperature (NHT) anomalies. Our analyses suggest that long-term changes in the states of the two ecosystems were synchronous and correlated to the same large-scale hydro-climatic variables: NHT anomalies, the AMO and to a lesser extent the EA pattern. No significant correlation was found between long-term ecosystem modifications and the state of the NAO. Our results suggest that the effect of climate on these ecosystems has mainly occurred in both regions through the modulation of the thermal regime. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Accurate quantification of the distribution and variability of atmospheric CO2 is crucial for a better understanding of global carbon cycle characteristics and climate change. Model simulation and observations are only two ways to globally estimate CO2 concentrations and fluxes. However, large uncertainties still exist. Therefore, quantifying the differences between model and observations is rather helpful for reducing their uncertainties and further improving model estimations of global CO2 sources and sinks. In this paper, the GEOS-Chem model was selected to simulate CO2 concentration and then compared with the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) observations, CarbonTracker (CT) and the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) measurements during 2009–2011 for quantitatively evaluating the uncertainties of CO2 simulation. The results revealed that the CO2 simulated from GEOS-Chem is in good agreement with other CO2 data sources, but some discrepancies exist including: (1) compared with GOSAT retrievals, modeled XCO2 from GEOS-Chem is somewhat overestimated, with 0.78 ppm on average; (2) compared with CT, the simulated XCO2 from GEOS-Chem is slightly underestimated at most regions, although their time series and correlation show pretty good consistency; (3) compared with the TCCON sites, modeled XCO2 is also underestimated within 1 ppm at most sites, except at Garmisch, Karlsruhe, Sodankylä and Ny-Ålesund. Overall, the results demonstrate that the modeled XCO2 is underestimated on average, however, obviously overestimated XCO2 from GEOS-Chem were found at high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere in summer. These results are helpful for understanding the model uncertainties as well as to further improve the CO2 estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polar lows (PLs) are small, intense cyclones that form at high latitudes during the winter. Their high wind speeds and heavy precipitation can have substantial impacts on shipping, coastal communities and infrastructure. However, low‐resolution climate models poorly simulate PLs, which reduces the confidence in their future projections. In this study, Northern Hemisphere (NH) PLs are assessed for the first time in a high‐resolution (25 km) global atmosphere‐only climate model, N512 HadGEM3‐GA3, for both present‐day and future RCP8.5 climate scenarios. The representation of PLs is found to agree reasonably well with the NCEP‐CFS reanalysis. The number of NH PLs are projected to substantially decrease (by over 60%) by the end of the 21st century, which is largely due to an increase in atmospheric static stability. Large decreases in PL activity are found in the Norwegian Sea, north‐east Atlantic and north‐west Pacific Oceans. Smaller changes are found in regions of current PL activity, such as the Barents and Labrador Seas, while new regions of PL activity along the northern Russian coastline are found where the Arctic sea ice is projected to disappear. The spatial differences found in future PL activity could have a substantial impact on human activity in the Arctic region. Plain Language Summary: Polar lows (PLs) are small but intense storms that form during winter at high latitudes and affect regions such as Scandinavia, Northern Russia and Japan. Because of their strong winds and precipitation, PLs can cause damage to infrastructure, shipping and coastal communities. In this study, PLs are assessed for the first time in a high‐resolution (25 km) global climate model for both present climate conditions and a future climate scenario in the Northern Hemisphere. The number of PLs is found to substantially decrease by the end of the 21st century, mainly due to a reduction in vertical temperature differences in the atmosphere. However, new regions of PL activity are found over the Arctic Ocean where the sea ice is projected to retreat. Key Points: The present representation of Northern Hemisphere PLs in a high‐resolution global climate model is found in agreement with previous studiesThe number of PLs is found to decrease by 60% by the end of the 21st century in the RCP8.5 scenario, but new PL locations emergeThe decrease of PL activity in the future is attributed to an atmospheric static stability increase in a baroclinic instability reduction [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a vivid debate about the border location between North and South Atlantic swordfish stocks. Climate oscillations, East Atlantic (EA) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), have a major impact on the Northern Hemisphere climate and weather conditions. The initial hypothesis of present study was that if it is considering the southern frontier, each stock will be differentially affected by both climatic oscillations, which would imply the existence of a strong border. However, a similar effect on both sides of the border would result in a permeable barrier. The results suggest that the combined effects of EA and NAO affect both the North and the South Atlantic swordfish stocks in similar ways, and consequently, the location of the border may reside farther north than the current management boundary at 5°N. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines the impacts of declining winter chill on the production of temperate perennial crops in the northern hemisphere. Recent studies have linked long-term climate data to key seasonal reproductive events in perennial plants. These studies suggest that the amount of winter chill occurring in the UK has declined and is predicted to continue to do so, based on future climate change scenarios described in the UK Climate Impacts Programme. It is apparent that there is a serious lack of mechanistic understanding of the physiological, molecular and genetical basis of winter chill requirement and dormancy-related environmental factors which affect perennial crop growth and yield. This situation exists despite knowledge of the impacts of climate on perennial plant development and an ability to model its effects, for many temperate fruit crops, on yield. The implications for future reductions in winter chill require recognition as a potential limiting factor on fruit production across Europe, particularly in the south. Within this review we describe the symptoms of lack of winter chill; these include effects on bud break, flower quality and the potential to set fruit, as well as effects on vegetative growth and development. Also included is current knowledge of developmental and physiological events which link flower initiation, anthesis, dormancy, chilling and bud break. Attention is given to what is known about dormancy induction, satisfaction of specific requirements and bud break. Possible strategies are described for mitigation of reduced winter chill, providing long-term solutions to secure perennial fruit supplies in Europe. This includes exploiting genotypic variability, within several perennial crops, through plant breeding to develop low chill-cultivars, together with opportunities to change crop management practices and growing systems to tolerate low chill. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported a significant rise of the global mean surface temperature over the last 100years, with a rate of warming over the last few decades almost double that over the last 100years. The rate of warming is higher at land surfaces over the Northern Hemisphere (NH), and particularly extreme warming is occurring over the Arctic. In spite of the global warming trend, some asymmetries have been observed. In a recent study, a widespread cooling over the NH during the boreal winter season was reported, although other previous studies observed a warming during this season. In this paper we report trends in winter air temperatures over the mid- to high-latitudes of the NH in the last three decades (1980–2012) using different climatic datasets at different spatial resolution (ERA-Interim, NCEP/NCAR, CRUTEM4, GHCN). Results extracted from the different datasets are consistent and show a neutral to moderate warming trend in the winter season during the last three decades. Greenland is an exception, where widespread and significant warming is observed in this time period. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Considered are the results of the investigation of climatic fluctuations, supercentury climate trend, and 30-year trends in modern Moscow based on the time series of monthly mean values of air temperature for 1879-2010. The data of air temperature anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere for the same period were used for the comparison. The computation of characteristics was carried out using the method of singular spectral analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Although sand seas are located in arid regions, given that the proportions of dune areas vary greatly from region to region they are clearly influenced by other factors as well as aridity. This paper discusses the distribution pattern and major features of sand seas and large fields of stabilized dunes in northern China, and demonstrates the main influences on their development. It appears that the availability of onsite loose sediments, not wind strength, is critical to the occurrence of the sand seas on a regional scale. Tectonic, endorheic basins or areas of alluvial fans or forelands of mountain ranges are advantageous to the accumulation of fluvial sediments, and thus are ideal locations of large sand seas in an arid climate. The large dune fields currently stabilized by vegetation were active sand seas during the drier periods of the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. The distribution patterns of Chinese sand seas suggest that the height or size of the dunes in the sand seas are determined more by the availability of sands than any other potential factors. As the sand seas in China account for a large portion of deserts in the middle latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere (Taklamakan is the second largest sand sea on Earth), knowledge of these sand seas’ past changes is important for understanding climatic changes in the terrestrial regions of mid-latitudes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Positive deviations from linear sea-level trends represent important climate signals if they are persistent and geographically widespread. This paper documents rapid sea-level rise reconstructed from sedimentary records obtained from salt marshes in the Southwest Pacific region (Tasmania and New Zealand). A new late Holocene relative sea-level record from eastern Tasmania was dated by AMS14C (conventional, high precision and bomb-spike), 137Cs, 210Pb, stable Pb isotopic ratios, trace metals, pollen and charcoal analyses. Palaeosea-level positions were determined by foraminiferal analyses. Relative sea level in Tasmania was within half a metre of present sea level for much of the last 6000yr. Between 1900 and 1950 relative sea level rose at an average rate of 4.2±0.1mm/yr. During the latter half of the 20th century the reconstructed rate of relative sea-level rise was 0.7±0.6mm/yr. Our study is consistent with a similar pattern of relative sea-level change recently reconstructed for southern New Zealand. The change in the rate of sea-level rise in the SW Pacific during the early 20th century was larger than in the North Atlantic and could suggest that northern hemisphere land-based ice was the most significant melt source for global sea-level rise. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The key variable describing global seasonal snow cover is snow water equivalent (SWE). However, reliable information on the hemispheric scale variability of SWE is lacking because traditional methods such as interpolation of ground-based measurements and stand-alone algorithms applied to space-borne observations are highly uncertain with respect to the spatial distribution of snow mass and its evolution. In this paper, an algorithm assimilating synoptic weather station data on snow depth with satellite passive microwave radiometer data is applied to produce a 30-year-long time-series of seasonal SWE for the northern hemisphere. This data set is validated using independent SWE reference data from Russia, the former Soviet Union, Finland and Canada. The validation of SWE time-series indicates overall strong retrieval performance with root mean square errors below 40mm for cases when SWE <150mm. Retrieval uncertainty increases when SWE is above this threshold. The SWE estimates are also compared with results obtained by a typical stand-alone satellite passive microwave algorithm. This comparison demonstrates the benefits of the newly developed assimilation approach. Additionally, the trends and inter-annual variability of northern hemisphere snow mass during the era of satellite passive microwave measurements are shown. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

previously defined automatic method is applied to reanalysis and present-day (1950-1989) forced simulations of the ECHO-G model in order to assess its performance in reproducing atmospheric blocking in the Northern Hemisphere. Unlike previous methodologies, critical parameters and thresholds to estimate blocking occurrence in the model are not calibrated with an observed reference, but objectively derived from the simulated climatology. The choice of model dependent parameters allows for an objective definition of blocking and corrects for some intrinsic model bias, the difference between model and observed thresholds providing a measure of systematic errors in the model. The model captures reasonably the main blocking features (location, amplitude, annual cycle and persistence) found in observations, but reveals a relative southward shift of Eurasian blocks and an overall underestimation of blocking activity, especially over the Euro-Atlantic sector. Blocking underestimation mostly arises from the model inability to generate long persistent blocks with the observed frequency. This error is mainly attributed to a bias in the basic state. The bias pattern consists of excessive zonal winds over the Euro-Atlantic sector and a southward shift at the exit zone of the jet stream extending into in the Eurasian continent, that are more prominent in cold and warm seasons and account for much of Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian blocking errors, respectively. It is shown that other widely used blocking indices or empirical observational thresholds may not give a proper account of the lack of realism in the model as compared with the proposed method. This suggests that in addition to blocking changes that could be ascribed to natural variability processes or climate change signals in the simulated climate, attention should be paid to significant departures in the diagnosis of phenomena that can also arise from an inappropriate adaptation of detection methods to the climate of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: As part of a project comparing the structure and function of four marine ecosystems off Norway and the United States, this paper examines the oceanographic responses to climate forcing, with emphasis on recent changes. The four Northern Hemisphere ecosystems include two in the Pacific Ocean (Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska) and two in the Atlantic Ocean (Georges Bank/Gulf of Maine and the Barents/Norwegian Seas). Air temperatures, wind forcing and heat fluxes over the four regions are compared as well as ocean hydrography and sea-ice conditions where seasonal sea ice is found. The long-term interannual variability in air temperatures, winds and net heat fluxes show strong similarity between adjacent ecosystems and within subregions of an ecosystem, but no significant correlations between Pacific and Atlantic ecosystems and few across the Atlantic. In spite of the lack of correlation between climate forcing and ocean conditions between most of the ecosystems, recent years have seen record or near record highs in air and sea temperatures in all ecosystems. The apparent causes of the warming differ. In the Atlantic, they appear to be due to advection, while in the Pacific temperatures are more closely linked to air-sea heat exchanges. Advection is also responsible for the observed changes in salinity in the Atlantic ecosystems (generally increasing salinity in the Barents and Norwegian Seas and decreasing in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank) while salinity changes in the Gulf of Alaska are largely related to increased local runoff. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere from 1854 to 1999 have been analyzed in this article by means of a testing procedure that permits one to consider fractional degrees of integration. The tests are valid under general forms of serial correlation and deterministic trends and do not require estimation of the fractional differencing parameter. The results show that the series follows a fractionally integrated process with the order of integration higher than zero and thus implying long memory behavior. The series was decomposed into four different subsamples, and it was observed that the degree of dependence between the observations substantially increased during the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]