Anthropogenic aerosols and the weakening of the South Asian summer monsoon

Observations show that South Asia underwent a widespread summertime drying during the second half of the 20th century, but it is unclear whether this trend was due to natural variations or human activities. We used a series of climate model experiments to investigate the South Asian monsoon response to natural and anthropogenic forcings. We find that the observed precipitation decrease can be attributed mainly to human-influenced aerosol emissions. The drying is a robust outcome of a slowdown of the tropical meridional overturning circulation, which compensates for the aerosol-induced energy imbalance between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. These results provide compelling evidence of the prominent role of aerosols in shaping regional climate change over South Asia.     

Human-induced Arctic moistening

The Arctic and northern subpolar regions are critical for climate change. Ice-albedo feedback amplifies warming in the Arctic, and fluctuations of regional fresh water inflow to the Arctic Ocean modulate the deep ocean circulation and thus exert a strong global influence. By comparing observations to simulations from 22 coupled climate models, we find influence from anthropogenic greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols in the space-time pattern of precipitation change over high-latitude land areas north of 55 degrees N during the second half of the 20th century. The human-induced Arctic moistening is consistent with observed increases in Arctic river discharge and freshening of Arctic water masses. This result provides new evidence that human activity has contributed to Arctic hydrological change.     

我国沙尘气溶胶的特性及其影响的研究进展

由于与气候变化和人类活动息息相关,沙尘气溶胶对气候和环境的影响一直广受关注.针对我国沙尘气溶胶的理化性质及其对云和降水、辐射、城市空气质量、人体健康等方面的影响,就近些年来所取得的成果做了回顾和总结,以期对今后沙尘气溶胶的更深入研究有所借鉴和帮助.     

Detection of a human influence on North American climate

Several indices of large-scale patterns of surface temperature variation were used to investigate climate change in North America over the 20th century. The observed variability of these indices was simulated well by a number of climate models. Comparison of index trends in observations and model simulations shows that North American temperature changes from 1950 to 1999 were unlikely to be due to natural climate variation alone. Observed trends over this period are consistent with simulations that include anthropogenic forcing from increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols. However, most of the observed warming from 1900 to 1949 was likely due to natural climate variation.     

气候变化对中国东北地区生态与环境的影响

【研究目的】综述了气候变化对东北地区的影响,以期在区域发展中能利用气候变化的有利方面,降低其不利的影响;【方法】根据近年来发表的相关论文,文章综述了东北地区已经发生的气候变化影响及未来可能受到的影响;【结果】结果表明,过去100年东北地区的温度升高明显且降水普遍减少,干旱化趋势严峻。温度的升高改善了东北的热量资源,部分农业生产从中受益。但由于气候变化,目前特殊的生态系统如湿地,冻土退化或消失。未来的气候变化,会改变农业生产布局,降低主要作物的产量,生态系统结构发生改变,农牧带沙漠化的风险增加;【结论】东北地区必须客观认识气候变化的利弊影响,采取相应的适应和应对措施,促进区域发展。     

Smoke invigoration versus inhibition of clouds over the Amazon

The effect of anthropogenic aerosols on clouds is one of the most important and least understood aspects of human-induced climate change. Small changes in the amount of cloud coverage can produce a climate forcing equivalent in magnitude and opposite in sign to that caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, and changes in cloud height can shift the effect of clouds from cooling to warming. Focusing on the Amazon, we show a smooth transition between two opposing effects of aerosols on clouds: the microphysical and the radiative. We show how a feedback between the optical properties of aerosols and the cloud fraction can modify the aerosol forcing, changing the total radiative energy and redistributing it over the atmospheric column.     

RSM区域谱模式特征分析

短期气候的预测对农业生产、农业气象灾害的防御有重要作用。为探索短期气候预测的客观预报工具,引进美国NMC的区域谱模式RSM,并利用该模式对华东地区的短期气候要素进行了预测检验,结果显示：RSM区域模式在地形分布、台风结构、降水等方面的诠释能力较ECHAM4．5全球模式要好。     

Solid ammonium sulfate aerosols as ice nuclei: a pathway for cirrus cloud formation

Laboratory measurements support a cirrus cloud formation pathway involving heterogeneous ice nucleation by solid ammonium sulfate aerosols. Ice formation occurs at low ice-saturation ratios consistent with the formation of continental cirrus and an interhemispheric asymmetry observed for cloud onset. In a climate model, this mechanism provides a widespread source of ice nuclei and leads to fewer but larger ice crystals as compared with a homogeneous freezing scenario. This reduces both the cloud albedo and the longwave heating by cirrus. With the global ammonia budget dominated by agricultural practices, this pathway might further couple anthropogenic activity to the climate system.     

Amazon deforestation and climate change

A coupled numerical model of the global atmosphere and biosphere has been used to assess the effects of Amazon deforestation on the regional and global climate. When the tropical forests in the model were replaced by degraded grass (pasture), there was a significant increase in surface temperature and a decrease in evapotranspiration and precipitation over Amazonia. In the simulation, the length of the dry season also increased; such an increase could make reestablishment of the tropical forests after massive deforestation particularly difficult.     

Fracture propagation to the base of the Greenland Ice Sheet during supraglacial lake drainage

Surface meltwater that reaches the base of an ice sheet creates a mechanism for the rapid response of ice flow to climate change. The process whereby such a pathway is created through thick, cold ice has not, however, been previously observed. We describe the rapid (<2 hours) drainage of a large supraglacial lake down 980 meters through to the bed of the Greenland Ice Sheet initiated by water-driven fracture propagation evolving into moulin flow. Drainage coincided with increased seismicity, transient acceleration, ice-sheet uplift, and horizontal displacement. Subsidence and deceleration occurred over the subsequent 24 hours. The short-lived dynamic response suggests that an efficient drainage system dispersed the meltwater subglacially. The integrated effect of multiple lake drainages could explain the observed net regional summer ice speedup.     

Reduction of tropical cloudiness by soot

Measurements and models show that enhanced aerosol concentrations can augment cloud albedo not only by increasing total droplet cross-sectional area, but also by reducing precipitation and thereby increasing cloud water content and cloud coverage. Aerosol pollution is expected to exert a net cooling influence on the global climate through these conventional mechanisms. Here, we demonstrate an opposite mechanism through which aerosols can reduce cloud cover and thus significantly offset aerosol-induced radiative cooling at the top of the atmosphere on a regional scale. In model simulations, the daytime clearing of trade cumulus is hastened and intensified by solar heating in dark haze (as found over much of the northern Indian Ocean during the northeast monsoon).     

Anthropogenic warming of Earth's climate system

We compared the temporal variability of the heat content of the world ocean, of the global atmosphere, and of components of Earth's cryosphere during the latter half of the 20th century. Each component has increased its heat content (the atmosphere and the ocean) or exhibited melting (the cryosphere). The estimated increase of observed global ocean heat content (over the depth range from 0 to 3000 meters) between the 1950s and 1990s is at least one order of magnitude larger than the increase in heat content of any other component. Simulation results using an atmosphere-ocean general circulation model that includes estimates of the radiative effects of observed temporal variations in greenhouse gases, sulfate aerosols, solar irradiance, and volcanic aerosols over the past century agree with our observation-based estimate of the increase in ocean heat content. The results we present suggest that the observed increase in ocean heat content may largely be due to the increase of anthropogenic gases in Earth's atmosphere.     

Detecting climatic change signals: are there any "fingerprints"?

Projected changes in the Earth's climate can be driven from a combined set of forcing factors consisting of regionally heterogeneous anthropogenic and natural aerosols and land use changes, as well as global-scale influences from solar variability and transient increases in human-produced greenhouse gases. Thus, validation of climate model projections that are driven only by increases in greenhouse gases can be inconsistent when one attempts the validation by looking for a regional or time-evolving "fingerprint" of such projected changes in real climatic data. Until climate models are driven by time-evolving, combined, multiple, and heterogeneous forcing factors, the best global climatic change "fingerprint" will probably remain a many-decades average of hemi-spheric- to global-scale trends in surface air temperatures. Century-long global warming (or cooling) trends of 0.5 degrees C appear to have occurred infrequently over the past several thousand years-perhaps only once or twice a millennium, as proxy records suggest. This implies an 80 to 90 percent heuristic likelihood that the 20th-century 0.5 +/- 0.2 degrees C warming trend is not a wholly natural climatic fluctuation.     

气候变化背景下农业技术适宜性研究

以气候变暖为主要特征的全球气候变化对环境、生态和社会经济系统产生重大影响,并通过对农业生产和相关产业的影响直接威胁我国乃至全球的粮食安全。在文献分析和实地调研的基础上,收集和整理农业生产基本数据和我国现有的农业技术资料数据;根据IPPC第5次评估报告中气候变化影响框架的基本思想,构建气候变化背景下区域与农业技术适应情景矩阵;采用多目标综合评价法,构建农业技术适宜性评估模型。结果表明:农业技术适宜性评估主要考虑技术本身的特点和区域的实际情况;在农业技术评价指标体系与区域评价指标体系构建中,主要考虑的因素包括:作物适宜性、水资源条件、光温条件、地形条件、经济条件和生态条件等6个方面;应用农业技术适宜性评估模型,可实现农业技术的区域适宜性评估,获得不同农业种植二级区内适应气候变化的农业技术。     

气候变化对我国水稻生产的影响及科技应对措施

以水稻为例,通过在C-D生产函数中加入气候因子,构建了经济-气候新模型,实证分析气候变化对中国各地区水稻产量的影响大小和地区差异,并从适应性方面提出了粮食生产应对气候变化的科技应对策略。     

Inverse relations between amounts of air pollution and orographic precipitation

Particulate air pollution has been suggested as the cause of the recently observed decreasing trends of 10 to 25% in the ratio between hilly and upwind lowland precipitation, downwind of urban and industrial areas. We quantified the dependence of this ratio of the orographic-precipitation enhancement factor on the amounts of aerosols composed mostly of pollution in the free troposphere, based on measurements at Mt. Hua near Xi'an, in central China. The hilly precipitation can be decreased by 30 to 50% during hazy conditions, with visibility of less than 8 kilometers at the mountaintop. This trend shows the role of air pollution in the loss of significant water resources in hilly areas, which is a major problem in China and many other areas of the world.     

长江三角洲地区水文水资源变化趋势及其对气候变化的响应

全球变暖是目前最重要的环境问题之一,将加速大气环流和水文循环过程,引起水文水资源及其空间分布的变化。长江三角洲是我国的经济核心区,1960年代以来区域气温上升,形成一个区域性热岛,1990年代以来增温幅度逐渐加大。在区域气候变暖的背景下,长江三角洲地区水文水资源特征发生趋势性变化,该研究从降水径流、海平面上升、海水入侵、水质污染4个方面,分析气候变化对长江三角洲地区水文、水资源变化趋势的影响。     

农田碳汇管理措施对农业生产影响的评价

实施必要的农田碳汇管理措施在减缓并应对全球气候变化的影响中发挥着积极的作用。在这种背景下,采用经济学上的生产函数来评价碳汇管理措施对农业生产的影响成为当前国内外学术界研究的热点问题之一。在全球气候变化的背景下,作为中国粮食主产区之一的华北平原,其农业生产明显受到气候变化的影响。从某种程度上看,华北平原农业生产的进一步发展将直接受制于气候变化及其与减缓气候变化效应密切相关的实施农田碳汇管理措施所产生的综合影响。该文以华北平原为案例区试验并测算了碳汇管理措施对农业生产的影响。研究结论对区域水平实施碳汇管理措施以及在适应并应对气候变化影响的背景下,实现农业生产的发展具有指导价值。     

中国北方新增耕地的时空变化及驱动因素分区

【目的】新增耕地的时空变化格局受气候变化和人类活动的双重影响,明确新增耕地时空格局变化及其驱动因素,为保障耕地资源和农业可持续发展提供指导。【方法】基于1980s—1990s、1990s—2000s、2000s—2010s 3个时段中国北方的新增耕地数据,利用重心转移模型和区域统计等方法,探讨中国北方新增耕地的重心变化以及时空格局变化;基于气候数据计算3个时段≥10 ℃积温（AAT10）以及标准化降水蒸散指数（SPEI）,分析气候因素对耕地开垦的驱动作用;基于1980s以来的社会经济统计数据,结合空间叠加模型、区域统计模型等分析人为因素对耕地开垦的促进作用;综合气候和人为因素,结合地理分区的方法对中国北方的新增耕地进行分区。【结果】1980s以来,中国北方新增耕地重心呈现由东北向西北转移的态势;大多数耕地开垦地区的气候有暖干化趋势,2000年以来具有暖湿趋势的耕地开垦区比例逐渐增加;农业为主人口的增加、农业技术进步以及国家政策的影响为东北、新疆等地耕地资源扩张提供了必要的基础;新疆、黑龙江、吉林等地丰富的耕地后备资源以及平坦的地势条件为耕地开垦提供了可能;基于对气候和人为驱动因素分析,将中国北方分为7个分区,即东北北部气候驱动林草-耕地转换区、东北气候+人为驱动林草-耕地转换区、东北中部气候+人为驱动水旱转换区、北方气候+人为驱动林草-耕地转换区、黄土高原人为驱动生态恢复区、西北人为驱动荒地-耕地转换区以及新疆人为驱动绿洲农业开垦区。【结论】1980s以来,中国北方新增耕地时空格局表现出明显的差异性;暖干气候并未成为耕地开垦的限制因素,而较为湿润的气候在一定程度上促进了耕地的开垦;农业人口的增加、农业技术的进步以及国家政策的影响,对耕地开垦起到重要作用。     

Aerosol indirect effect on biogeochemical cycles and climate

The net effect of anthropogenic aerosols on climate is usually considered the sum of the direct radiative effect of anthropogenic aerosols, plus the indirect effect of these aerosols through aerosol-cloud interactions. However, an additional impact of aerosols on a longer time scale is their indirect effect on climate through biogeochemical feedbacks, largely due to changes in the atmospheric concentration of CO(2). Aerosols can affect land and ocean biogeochemical cycles by physical forcing or by adding nutrients and pollutants to ecosystems. The net biogeochemical effect of aerosols is estimated to be equivalent to a radiative forcing of -0.5 ± 0.4 watts per square meter, which suggests that reaching lower carbon targets will be even costlier than previously estimated.