Journal of Climate back issues from July 2008:
Winter-to-Spring Transition in East Asia: A Planetary-Scale Perspective of the South China Spring Rain Onset
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT Analysis of observations from 1979 to 2002 shows that the seasonal transition from winter to spring in East Asia is marked with a distinctive event-the onset of the south China spring rain (SCSR). In late February, the reduced thermal contrast between ocean and land leads to ...
Simulating AOGCM Soil Moisture Using an Off-Line Thornthwaite Potential Evapotranspiration-Based Land Surface Scheme. Part I: Control Runs
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT Atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) employ very different land surface schemes (LSSs) and, as a result, their predictions of land surface quantities are often difficult to compare. Some of the disagreement in quantities such as soil moisture is likely due to ...
A Weather-Type Approach to Analyzing Winter Precipitation in France: Twentieth-Century Trends and the Role of Anthropogenic Forcing
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT The relationship between large-scale atmospheric circulation and November-March precipitation over France during the twentieth century is investigated. A long daily MSLP dataset is used to derive daily weather types that are discriminant for precipitation. A linear regression ...
Volcanoes and ENSO over the Past Millennium
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT The controversial claim that El Niño events might be partially caused by radiative forcing due to volcanic aerosols is reassessed. Building on the work of Mann et al., estimates of volcanic forcing over the past millennium and a climate model of intermediate complexity are used ...
Weakening Trend in the Atmospheric Heat Source over the Tibetan Plateau during Recent Decades. Part I: Observations
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT The trend in the atmospheric heat source over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) during the last four decades is evaluated using historical observations at 74 meteorological stations in the period of 1961-2003 and satellite radiation data from 1983 to 2004. It is shown that in contrast to ...
Annular versus Nonannular Variability of the Northern Hemisphere Atmospheric Circulation
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT The annular variability of the northern winter extratropical circulation is reassessed based on reanalysis data that are dynamically filtered by normal modes. One-half of the variability of the monthly averaged barotropic zonally symmetric circulation of the Northern Hemisphere ...
The Influence of ENSO on Decadal Variations in the Relationship between the East Asian and Western North Pacific Summer Monsoons
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT A recent study suggested that the relationship between the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) and the western North Pacific summer monsoon (WNPSM) experienced a decadal change around 1993-94. Based on a longer-term integration of a hybrid coupled model, the present study ...
Atlantic Basin Seasonal Hurricane Simulations
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT An ensemble of seasonal Atlantic hurricane simulations is conducted using The Florida State University/Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies (FSU-COAPS) global spectral model (Cocke and LaRow) at a resolution of T126L27 (a Gaussian grid spacing of 0.94°). Four ...
Direct and Indirect Shortwave Radiative Effects of Sea Salt Aerosols
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT Sea salt aerosols play a dual role in affecting the atmospheric radiative balance. Directly, sea salt particles scatter the incoming solar radiation and absorb the outgoing terrestrial radiation. By acting as cloud condensation nuclei, sea salt aerosols indirectly modulate the ...
Absorbing Aerosols and Summer Monsoon Evolution over South Asia: An Observational Portrayal
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT The South Asian haze builds up from December to May, is mostly of anthropogenic origin, and absorbs part of the solar radiation. The influence of interannual variations of absorbing aerosols over the Indo-Gangetic Plain in May on the Indian summer monsoon is characterized by ...
Meridional Structure of the Seasonally Varying Mixed Layer Temperature Balance in the Eastern Tropical Pacific
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT The eastern tropical Pacific Ocean is important climatically because of its influence on the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle and the American monsoon. Accurate prediction of these phenomena requires a better understanding of the background climatological conditions on ...
Would Advance Knowledge of 1930s SSTs Have Allowed Prediction of the Dust Bowl Drought?*
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT Could the Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s have been predicted in advance if the SST anomalies of the 1930s had been foreknown? Ensembles of model simulations forced with historical observed SSTs in the global ocean, and also separately in the tropical Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, ...
Observed and Simulated Upper-Tropospheric Water Vapor Feedback
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT Satellite measurements from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) in the upper troposphere over 4.5 yr are used to assess the covariation of upper-tropospheric humidity and temperature with surface temperatures, which can be used to constrain the upper-tropospheric moistening ...
Impacts of Assimilation of Satellite and Rawinsonde Observations on Southern Hemisphere Baroclinic Wave Activity in the NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT In this study, the impacts of the assimilation of satellite and rawinsonde observations on Southern Hemisphere (SH) baroclinic wave activity in the NCEP-NCAR reanalysis are examined by comparing analyses made with and without the assimilation of satellite data (SAT and NOSAT, ...
Stability of Antarctic Bottom Water Formation to Freshwater Fluxes and Implications for Global Climate
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT The stability of Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) to freshwater (FW) perturbations is investigated in a coupled climate model of intermediate complexity. It is found that AABW is stable to surface freshwater fluxes greater in volume and rate to those that permanently "shut down" ...
Temporal Variability of Fair-Weather Cumulus Statistics at the ACRF SGP Site
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT Continental fair-weather cumuli exhibit significant diurnal, day-to-day, and year-to-year variability. This study describes the climatology of cloud macroscale properties, over the U.S. Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility ...
Evolution of the Deep and Bottom Waters of the Scotia Sea, Southern Ocean, during 1995-2005*
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT The Southern Ocean hosts the formation of the densest layers of the oceanic overturning circulation and provides a climatically sensitive element of deep ocean ventilation. An oceanographic section across the eastern Scotia Sea occupied in 1995, 1999, and 2005 reveals ...
A Review of Antarctic Surface Snow Isotopic Composition: Observations, Atmospheric Circulation, and Isotopic Modeling*
Jul 01, 2008; ... ABSTRACT A database of surface Antarctic snow isotopic composition is constructed using available measurements, with an estimate of data quality and local variability. Although more than 1000 locations are documented, the spatial coverage remains uneven with a majority of sites located ...
Two Regimes of the Equatorial Warm Pool. Part I: A Simple Tropical Climate Model
Jul 15, 2008; ... ABSTRACT Atmosphere-ocean coupled processes responsible for generating and maintaining the equatorial warm pool were investigated using models of different complexities. The primary focus was to answer the following question: why is the observed warm pool concentrated around the maritime ...
The Response of the ITCZ to Extratropical Thermal Forcing: Idealized Slab-Ocean Experiments with a GCM
Jul 15, 2008; ... ABSTRACT Using a comprehensive atmospheric GCM coupled to a slab mixed layer ocean, experiments are performed to study the mechanism by which displacements of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) are forced from the extratropics. The northern extratropics are cooled and the southern ...
On Multidecadal and Quasi-Decadal North Atlantic Variability
Jul 15, 2008; ... ABSTRACT Observed sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the North Atlantic from 1958 through 2000, as well as data from an ocean model simulation driven with the atmospheric variability observed during the same period, are examined using multichannel singular spectrum analysis. The two ...
Quantifying Climate Feedbacks Using Radiative Kernels
Jul 15, 2008; ... ABSTRACT The extent to which the climate will change due to an external forcing depends largely on radiative feedbacks, which act to amplify or damp the surface temperature response. There are a variety of issues that complicate the analysis of radiative feedbacks in global climate ...
Shallow Meridional Circulations in the Tropical Atmosphere
Jul 15, 2008; ... ABSTRACT A shallow meridional circulation (SMC) in the tropical atmosphere features a low-level (e.g., 700 hPa) flow that is in the opposite direction to the boundary layer monsoon or trade wind flow and is distinct from the meridional flow above. Representations of the SMC in three ...
SST Forcings and Sahel Rainfall Variability in Simulations of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
Jul 15, 2008; ... ABSTRACT The outlook for Sahel precipitation in coupled simulations of the twenty-first century is very uncertain, with different models disagreeing even on the sign of the trends. Such disagreement is especially surprising in light of the robust response of the same coupled models to ...
CORRIGENDUM
Jul 15, 2008; ... In "Distinct Modes of the East Asian Summer Monsoon," by Bingyi Wu, Renhe Zhang, Yihui Ding, and Rosanne D'Arrigo, which was published in the Journal of Climate, Vol. 21, No. 5,1122-1138, the Chinese sponsors of the research described in the paper were not as prominently acknowledged as they ...
CORRIGENDUM
Jul 15, 2008; ... (ProQuest: ... denotes formula omitted.) Due to an editorial error, an incorrect version of Eq. (1) was published in "Gulf Stream and ENSO Increase the Temperature Sensitivity of Atlantic Tropical Cyclones," by J. C. Moore, A. Grinsted, and S. Jevrejeva, ...
The Low-Frequency Relationship of the Tropical-North Pacific Sea Surface Temperature Teleconnections
Jul 15, 2008; ... ABSTRACT The low-frequency relationship between interannual tropical and North Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) in observations and a coupled general circulation model (CGCM) is investigated. The authors use the interactive ensemble CGCM, which advances a new approach ...
The Influence of Atmospheric Noise and Uncertainty in Ocean Initial Conditions on the Limit of Predictability in a Coupled GCM
Jul 15, 2008; ... ABSTRACT The influence of atmospheric stochastic forcing and uncertainty in initial conditions on the limit of predictability of the NCEP Climate Forecast System (CFS) is quantified based on comparisons of idealized identical twin prediction experiments using two different coupling ...
Two Regimes of the Equatorial Warm Pool. Part II: Hybrid Coupled GCM Experiments
Jul 15, 2008; ... ABSTRACT In this second of a two-part study, the two regimes in a simple tropical climate model identified in Part I are verified using a hybrid coupled general circulation model (HCM) that can reproduce the observed climatology and the interannual variability reasonably well. Defining a ...
Synoptic Circulation and Land Surface Influences on Convection in the Midwest U.S. "Corn Belt" during the Summers of 1999 and 2000. Part I: Composite Synoptic Environments
Jul 15, 2008; ... ABSTRACT In the Midwest U.S. Corn Belt, the 1999 and 2000 summer seasons (15 June-15 September) expressed contrasting spatial patterns and magnitudes of precipitation (1999: dry; 2000: normal to moist). Distinct from the numerical modeling approach often used in studies of land ...
A Comparison of Climate Prediction and Simulation over the Tropical Pacific
Jul 15, 2008; ... ABSTRACT This study compares an ensemble of seasonal hindcasts with a multidecadal integration from the same global coupled climate model over the tropical Pacific Ocean. It is shown that the annual mean state of the SST and its variability are different over the tropical Pacific Ocean ...
On Estimates of Historical North Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Activity*
Jul 15, 2008; ... ABSTRACT In this study, an estimate of the expected number of Atlantic tropical cyclones (TCs) that were missed by the observing system in the presatellite era (between 1878 and 1965) is developed. The significance of trends in both number and duration since 1878 is assessed and these ...
Reduced Atlantic Storminess during Last Glacial Maximum: Evidence from a Coupled Climate Model
Jul 15, 2008; ... ABSTRACT The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), 21 000 yr before present, was the time of maximum land ice extent during the last ice age. A recent simulation of the LGM climate by a state-of-the-art fully coupled global climate model is shown to exhibit strong, steady atmospheric jets and weak ...