Download or read book Twenty first century Changes in U S Regional Heavy Precipitation Frequency Based on Resolved Atmospheric Patterns written by and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Precipitation-gauge observations and atmospheric reanalysis are combined to develop an analogue method for detecting heavy precipitation events based on prevailing large-scale atmospheric conditions. Combinations of atmospheric variables for circulation (geopotential height and wind vector) and moisture (surface specific humidity, column and up to 500-hPa precipitable water) are examined to construct analogue schemes for the winter [December-February (DJF)] of the "Pacific Coast California" (PCCA) region and the summer [June-August (JJA)] of the Midwestern United States (MWST). The detection diagnostics of analogue schemes are calibrated with 1979-2005 and validated with 2006-14 NASA Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA). All analogue schemes are found to significantly improve upon MERRA precipitation in characterizing the occurrence and interannual variations of observed heavy precipitation events in the MWST. When evaluated with the late twentieth-century climate model simulations from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), all analogue schemes produce model medians of heavy precipitation frequency that are more consistent with observations and have smaller intermodel discrepancies than model-based precipitation. Under the representative concentration pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios, the CMIP5-based analogue schemes produce trends in heavy precipitation occurrence through the twenty-first century that are consistent with model-based precipitation, but with smaller intermodel disparity. The median trends in heavy precipitation frequency are positive for DJF over PCCA but are slightly negative for JJA over MWST. Overall, the analyses highlight the potential of the analogue as a powerful diagnostic tool for model deficiencies and its complementarity to an evaluation of heavy precipitation frequency based on model precipitation alone. Keywords: North America; Atmospheric circulation; Extreme events; Flood events; General circulation models; Model evaluation/performance.
Download or read book Review of the Draft Fourth National Climate Assessment written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2018-06-18 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change poses many challenges that affect society and the natural world. With these challenges, however, come opportunities to respond. By taking steps to adapt to and mitigate climate change, the risks to society and the impacts of continued climate change can be lessened. The National Climate Assessment, coordinated by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is a mandated report intended to inform response decisions. Required to be developed every four years, these reports provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date evaluation of climate change impacts available for the United States, making them a unique and important climate change document. The draft Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) report reviewed here addresses a wide range of topics of high importance to the United States and society more broadly, extending from human health and community well-being, to the built environment, to businesses and economies, to ecosystems and natural resources. This report evaluates the draft NCA4 to determine if it meets the requirements of the federal mandate, whether it provides accurate information grounded in the scientific literature, and whether it effectively communicates climate science, impacts, and responses for general audiences including the public, decision makers, and other stakeholders.
Download or read book Attribution of Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate Change written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2016-07-28 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As climate has warmed over recent years, a new pattern of more frequent and more intense weather events has unfolded across the globe. Climate models simulate such changes in extreme events, and some of the reasons for the changes are well understood. Warming increases the likelihood of extremely hot days and nights, favors increased atmospheric moisture that may result in more frequent heavy rainfall and snowfall, and leads to evaporation that can exacerbate droughts. Even with evidence of these broad trends, scientists cautioned in the past that individual weather events couldn't be attributed to climate change. Now, with advances in understanding the climate science behind extreme events and the science of extreme event attribution, such blanket statements may not be accurate. The relatively young science of extreme event attribution seeks to tease out the influence of human-cause climate change from other factors, such as natural sources of variability like El Niño, as contributors to individual extreme events. Event attribution can answer questions about how much climate change influenced the probability or intensity of a specific type of weather event. As event attribution capabilities improve, they could help inform choices about assessing and managing risk, and in guiding climate adaptation strategies. This report examines the current state of science of extreme weather attribution, and identifies ways to move the science forward to improve attribution capabilities.
Download or read book Atmospheric Rivers written by F. Martin Ralph and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-10 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the standard reference based on roughly 20 years of research on atmospheric rivers, emphasizing progress made on key research and applications questions and remaining knowledge gaps. The book presents the history of atmospheric-rivers research, the current state of scientific knowledge, tools, and policy-relevant (science-informed) problems that lend themselves to real-world application of the research—and how the topic fits into larger national and global contexts. This book is written by a global team of authors who have conducted and published the majority of critical research on atmospheric rivers over the past years. The book is intended to benefit practitioners in the fields of meteorology, hydrology and related disciplines, including students as well as senior researchers.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Food Water and Society written by John Anthony Allan and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 945 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Society's greatest use of water is in food production; a fact that puts farmers centre stage in global environmental management. Current management of food value chains, however, is not well set up to enable farmers to undertake their dual role of feeding a growing population and stewarding natural resources. The book considers the interconnected issues of real water in the environment and "virtual water" in food value chains and investigates how society influences both fields. This perspective draws out considerable challenges for food security and for environmental stewardship in the context of ongoing global change. The book discusses these issues by region and with global overviews of selected commodities. Innovation relevant to the kind of change needed for the current food system to meet future challenges is reviewed in light of the findings of the regional and thematic analysis.
Download or read book Climate Science for Serving Society written by Ghassem R. Asrar and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-18 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers a comprehensive survey and a close analysis of efforts to develop actionable climate information in support of vital decisions for climate adaptation, risk management and policy. Arising from submissions and discussion at the 2011 Open Science Conference (OSC) of the World Climate Research Program (WCRP), the book addresses research and intellectual challenges which span the full range of Program activities.
Download or read book Climate Stabilization Targets written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2011-02-11 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels have ushered in a new epoch where human activities will largely determine the evolution of Earth's climate. Because carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is long lived, it can effectively lock the Earth and future generations into a range of impacts, some of which could become very severe. Emissions reductions decisions made today matter in determining impacts experienced not just over the next few decades, but in the coming centuries and millennia. According to Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts Over Decades to Millennia, important policy decisions can be informed by recent advances in climate science that quantify the relationships between increases in carbon dioxide and global warming, related climate changes, and resulting impacts, such as changes in streamflow, wildfires, crop productivity, extreme hot summers, and sea level rise. One way to inform these choices is to consider the projected climate changes and impacts that would occur if greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were stabilized at a particular concentration level. The book quantifies the outcomes of different stabilization targets for greenhouse gas concentrations using analyses and information drawn from the scientific literature. Although it does not recommend or justify any particular stabilization target, it does provide important scientific insights about the relationships among emissions, greenhouse gas concentrations, temperatures, and impacts. Climate Stabilization Targets emphasizes the importance of 21st century choices regarding long-term climate stabilization. It is a useful resource for scientists, educators and policy makers, among others.
Download or read book Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation written by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-28 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Extreme weather and climate events, interacting with exposed and vulnerable human and natural systems, can lead to disasters. This Special Report explores the social as well as physical dimensions of weather- and climate-related disasters, considering opportunities for managing risks at local to international scales. SREX was approved and accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on 18 November 2011 in Kampala, Uganda.
Download or read book Extremes in a Changing Climate written by Amir AghaKouchak and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-10-24 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a collection of the state-of-the-art methodologies and approaches suggested for detecting extremes, trend analysis, accounting for nonstationarities, and uncertainties associated with extreme value analysis in a changing climate. This volume is designed so that it can be used as the primary reference on the available methodologies for analysis of climate extremes. Furthermore, the book addresses current hydrometeorologic global data sets and their applications for global scale analysis of extremes. While the main objective is to deliver recent theoretical concepts, several case studies on extreme climate conditions are provided. Audience The book is suitable for teaching in graduate courses in the disciplines of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth System Science, Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences.
Download or read book Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States written by U.S. Global Change Research Program and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-24 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Summarizes the science of climate change and impacts on the United States, for the public and policymakers.
Download or read book Rainfall Intensity frequency Data written by David Leroy Yarnell and published by . This book was released on 1935 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Global Environmental Change written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1999-09-14 with total page 621 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can we understand and rise to the environmental challenges of global change? One clear answer is to understand the science of global change, not solely in terms of the processes that control changes in climate and the composition of the atmosphere, but in how ecosystems and human society interact with these changes. In the last two decades of the twentieth century, a number of such research effortsâ€"supported by computer and satellite technologyâ€"have been launched. Yet many opportunities for integration remain unexploited, and many fundamental questions remain about the earth's capacity to support a growing human population. This volume encourages a renewed commitment to understanding global change and sets a direction for research in the decade ahead. Through case studies the book explores what can be learned from the lessons of the past 20 years and what are the outstanding scientific questions. Highlights include: Research imperatives and strategies for investigators in the areas of atmospheric chemistry, climate, ecosystem studies, and human dimensions of global change. The context of climate change, including lessons to be gleaned from paleoclimatology. Human responses toâ€"and forcing ofâ€"projected global change. This book offers a comprehensive overview of global change research to date and provides a framework for answering urgent questions.
Download or read book Geography in America at the Dawn of the 21st Century written by Gary L. Gaile and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 854 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geography in America at the Dawn of the 21st Century surveys American geographers' current research in their specialty areas and tracks trends and innovations in the many subfields of geography. As such, it is both a 'state of the discipline' assessment and a topical reference. It includes an introduction by the editors and 47 chapters, each on a specific specialty. The authors of each chapter were chosen by their specialty group of the American Association of Geographers (AAG). Based on a process of review and revision, the chapters in this volume have become truly representative of the recent scholarship of American geographers. While it focuses on work since 1990, it additionally includes related prior work and work by non-American geographers. The initial Geography in America was published in 1989 and has become a benchmark reference of American geographical research during the 1980s. This latest volume is completely new and features a preface written by the eminent geographer, Gilbert White.
Download or read book 21st Century Changes in U S Heavy Precipitation Frequency Based on Resolved Atmospheric Patterns written by and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 23 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gridded precipitation-gauge observations and global atmospheric reanalysis are combined to develop an analogue method for detecting the occurrence of heavy precipitation events based on the prevailing large-scale atmospheric conditions. Combinations of different atmospheric variables for circulation features (geopotential height and wind vector) and moisture plumes (surface specific humidity, column precipitable water, and precipitable water up to 500hPa) are examined to construct the analogue schemes for the winter (DJF) of the Pacific Coast California (PCCA) and the summer (JJA) of the Midwestern United States (MWST). The detection diagnostics of various analogue schemes are calibrated with 27-yr (1979-2005) and then validated with 9-yr (2006-2014) NASA Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA). All of the analogue schemes are found to significantly improve upon MERRA precipitation in characterizing the number and interannual variations of observed heavy precipitation events in the MWST which is one of weakest regions for MERRA summer precipitation. When evaluated with the late 20th century simulations from an ensemble of climate models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), all analogue schemes produce model medians of heavy precipitation frequency that are more consistent with observations and have smaller inter-model discrepancies when compared with the model-based precipitation. Further, the performances of analogue schemes with vector winds are comparable to those of geopotential height, and no analogue scheme with one of three water vapor content variables is clearly superior to another. Under two radiative forcing scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 and 8.5), the CMIP5-based analogue schemes produce a trend in the occurrence of heavy events through the 21st century consistent with the model-based precipitation, but with smaller inter-model disparity. The strongest reduction in the disparity of the results is seen for the RCP8.5 scenario. The median trends in DJF heavy precipitation frequency for PCCA are positive, but for JJA heavy event frequency over the MWST region, the median trends are slightly negative. Overall, the presented analyses highlight the potential of the analogue as a powerful diagnostic tool for model deficiencies and its complementarity to an evaluation that considers modeled precipitation alone to assess heavy precipitation frequency. The consistency found here between projections from analogues and model precipitation increases confidence in projected heavy precipitation frequency changes in a warming climate.
Download or read book The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate written by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-30 with total page 755 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for assessing the science related to climate change. It provides policymakers with regular assessments of the scientific basis of human-induced climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. This IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate is the most comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the observed and projected changes to the ocean and cryosphere and their associated impacts and risks, with a focus on resilience, risk management response options, and adaptation measures, considering both their potential and limitations. It brings together knowledge on physical and biogeochemical changes, the interplay with ecosystem changes, and the implications for human communities. It serves policymakers, decision makers, stakeholders, and all interested parties with unbiased, up-to-date, policy-relevant information. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Download or read book Environmental Health Perspectives written by and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Climate Change 2021 The Physical Science Basis written by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-07-26 with total page 2410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides a comprehensive assessment of the physical science basis of climate change. It considers in situ and remote observations; paleoclimate information; understanding of climate drivers and physical, chemical, and biological processes and feedbacks; global and regional climate modelling; advances in methods of analyses; and insights from climate services. It assesses the current state of the climate; human influence on climate in all regions; future climate change including sea level rise; global warming effects including extremes; climate information for risk assessment and regional adaptation; limiting climate change by reaching net zero carbon dioxide emissions and reducing other greenhouse gas emissions; and benefits for air quality. The report serves policymakers, decision makers, stakeholders, and all interested parties with the latest policy-relevant information on climate change. Available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
