| 2. |
- Arndt, D. S., et al.
(author)
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State of the Climate in 2016
- 2017
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In: Bulletin of The American Meteorological Society - (BAMS). - 0003-0007 .- 1520-0477. ; 98:8, s. S1-S280
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In 2016, the dominant greenhouse gases released into Earth's atmosphere-carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide-continued to increase and reach new record highs. The 3.5 +/- 0.1 ppm rise in global annual mean carbon dioxide from 2015 to 2016 was the largest annual increase observed in the 58-year measurement record. The annual global average carbon dioxide concentration at Earth's surface surpassed 400 ppm (402.9 +/- 0.1 ppm) for the first time in the modern atmospheric measurement record and in ice core records dating back as far as 800000 years. One of the strongest El Nino events since at least 1950 dissipated in spring, and a weak La Nina evolved later in the year. Owing at least in part to the combination of El Nino conditions early in the year and a long-term upward trend, Earth's surface observed record warmth for a third consecutive year, albeit by a much slimmer margin than by which that record was set in 2015. Above Earth's surface, the annual lower troposphere temperature was record high according to all datasets analyzed, while the lower stratospheric temperature was record low according to most of the in situ and satellite datasets. Several countries, including Mexico and India, reported record high annual temperatures while many others observed near-record highs. A week-long heat wave at the end of April over the northern and eastern Indian peninsula, with temperatures surpassing 44 degrees C, contributed to a water crisis for 330 million people and to 300 fatalities. In the Arctic the 2016 land surface temperature was 2.0 degrees C above the 1981-2010 average, breaking the previous record of 2007, 2011, and 2015 by 0.8 degrees C, representing a 3.5 degrees C increase since the record began in 1900. The increasing temperatures have led to decreasing Arctic sea ice extent and thickness. On 24 March, the sea ice extent at the end of the growth season saw its lowest maximum in the 37-year satellite record, tying with 2015 at 7.2% below the 1981-2010 average. The September 2016 Arctic sea ice minimum extent tied with 2007 for the second lowest value on record, 33% lower than the 1981-2010 average. Arctic sea ice cover remains relatively young and thin, making it vulnerable to continued extensive melt. The mass of the Greenland Ice Sheet, which has the capacity to contribute similar to 7 m to sea level rise, reached a record low value. The onset of its surface melt was the second earliest, after 2012, in the 37-year satellite record. Sea surface temperature was record high at the global scale, surpassing the previous record of 2015 by about 0.01 degrees C. The global sea surface temperature trend for the 21st century-to-date of +0.162 degrees C decade(-1) is much higher than the longer term 1950-2016 trend of +0.100 degrees C decade(-1). Global annual mean sea level also reached a new record high, marking the sixth consecutive year of increase. Global annual ocean heat content saw a slight drop compared to the record high in 2015. Alpine glacier retreat continued around the globe, and preliminary data indicate that 2016 is the 37th consecutive year of negative annual mass balance. Across the Northern Hemisphere, snow cover for each month from February to June was among its four least extensive in the 47-year satellite record. Continuing a pattern below the surface, record high temperatures at 20-m depth were measured at all permafrost observatories on the North Slope of Alaska and at the Canadian observatory on northernmost Ellesmere Island. In the Antarctic, record low monthly surface pressures were broken at many stations, with the southern annular mode setting record high index values in March and June. Monthly high surface pressure records for August and November were set at several stations. During this period, record low daily and monthly sea ice extents were observed, with the November mean sea ice extent more than 5 standard deviations below the 1981-2010 average. These record low sea ice values contrast sharply with the record high values observed during 2012-14. Over the region, springtime Antarctic stratospheric ozone depletion was less severe relative to the 1991-2006 average, but ozone levels were still low compared to pre-1990 levels. Closer to the equator, 93 named tropical storms were observed during 2016, above the 1981-2010 average of 82, but fewer than the 101 storms recorded in 2015. Three basins-the North Atlantic, and eastern and western North Pacific-experienced above-normal activity in 2016. The Australian basin recorded its least active season since the beginning of the satellite era in 1970. Overall, four tropical cyclones reached the Saffir-Simpson category 5 intensity level. The strong El Nino at the beginning of the year that transitioned to a weak La Nina contributed to enhanced precipitation variability around the world. Wet conditions were observed throughout the year across southern South America, causing repeated heavy flooding in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Wetter-than-usual conditions were also observed for eastern Europe and central Asia, alleviating the drought conditions of 2014 and 2015 in southern Russia. In the United States, California had its first wetter-than-average year since 2012, after being plagued by drought for several years. Even so, the area covered by drought in 2016 at the global scale was among the largest in the post-1950 record. For each month, at least 12% of land surfaces experienced severe drought conditions or worse, the longest such stretch in the record. In northeastern Brazil, drought conditions were observed for the fifth consecutive year, making this the longest drought on record in the region. Dry conditions were also observed in western Bolivia and Peru; it was Bolivia's worst drought in the past 25 years. In May, with abnormally warm and dry conditions already prevailing over western Canada for about a year, the human-induced Fort McMurray wildfire burned nearly 590000 hectares and became the costliest disaster in Canadian history, with $3 billion (U.S. dollars) in insured losses.
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| 3. |
- Wang, D.Y., et al.
(author)
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Validation of nitric acid retrieved by the IMK-IAA processor from MIPAS/ENVISAT measurements
- 2007
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In: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 7, s. 721-738
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) onboard the ENVISAT satellite provides profiles of temperature and various trace-gases from limb-viewing mid-infrared emission measurements. The stratospheric nitric acid (HNO(3)) from September 2002 to March 2004 was retrieved from the MIPAS observations using the science-oriented data processor developed at the Institut fur Meteorologie und Klimaforschung (IMK), which is complemented by the component of non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (non-LTE) treatment from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (IAA). The IMK-IAA research product, different from the ESA operational product, is validated in this paper by comparison with a number of reference data sets. Individual HNO3 profiles of the IMK-IAA MIPAS show good agreement with those of the balloon-borne version of MIPAS (MIPAS-B) and the infrared spectrometer MkIV, with small differences of less than 0.5 ppbv throughout the entire altitude range up to about 38 km, and below 0.2 ppbv above 30 km. However, the degree of consistency is largely affected by their temporal and spatial coincidence, and differences of 1 to 2 ppbv may be observed between 22 and 26 km at high latitudes near the vortex boundary, due to large horizontal inhomogeneity of HNO(3). Statistical comparisons of MIPAS IMK-IAA HNO(3) VMRs with respect to those of satellite measurements of Odin/SMR, ILAS-II, ACE-FTS, as well as the MIPAS ESA product show good consistency. The mean differences are generally +/- 0.5 ppbv and standard deviations of the differences are of 0.5 to 1.5 ppbv. The maximum differences are 2.0 ppbv around 20 to 25 km. This gives confidence in the general reliability of MIPAS HNO(3) VMR data and the other three satellite data sets.
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| 4. |
- Glatthor, N., et al.
(author)
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Retrieval of stratospheric ozone profiles from MIPAS/ENVISAT limb emission spectra : a sensitivity study
- 2006
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In: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 6:10, s. 2767-2781
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We report on the dependence of ozone volume mixing ratio profiles, retrieved from limb emission infrared spectra of the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS), on different retrieval setups such as the treatment of the background continuum, cloud filtering, spectral regions used for analysis and a series of further more technical parameter choices. The purpose of this investigation is to better understand the error sources of the ozone retrieval, to optimize the current retrieval setup and to document changes in the data versions. It was shown that the cloud clearing technique used so far (cloud index 1.8) does not reliably exclude all cloud-contaminated spectra from analysis. Through analysis of spectra calculated for cloudy atmospheres we found that the cloud index should be increased to a value of 3.0 or higher. Further, it was found that assignment of a common background continuum to adjacent microwindows within 5 cm−1 is advantageous, because it sufficiently represents the continuum emission by aerosols, clouds and gases as reported in the literature, and is computationally more efficient. For ozone retrieval we use ozone lines from MIPAS band A (685–970 cm−1) and band AB (1020–1170 cm−1) as well. Therefore we checked ozone retrievals with lines from bands A or AB only for a systematic difference. Such a difference was indeed found and could, to a major part, be attributed to the spectroscopic data used in these two bands, and to a minor part to neglection of modelling of non-local thermodynamic (non-LTE) emissions. Another potential explanation, a bias in the radiance calibration of level-1B spectra of bands A and AB, could largely be ruled out by correlation analysis and inspection of broadband spectra. Further upgrades in the ozone retrieval consist of application of an all-zero a-priori profile and a weaker regularization. Finally, the ozone distribution obtained with the new retrieval setup (data versions V3o_O3_7) was compared to the data version used before (V2_O3_2). Differences are smaller than $\pm$0.4 ppmv in the altitude region 15–50 km. Further, differences to ozone measured by the HALogen Occultation Experiment (HALOE) on the Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite (UARS) are partly reduced with the new MIPAS data version.
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