First assessment of the earth heat inventory within CMIP5 historical simulations Earth System Dynamics DOI 10.5194/esd-12-581-2021 29 June 2021 The current radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere is increasing the heat stored in the oceans, atmosphere, continental subsurface and cryosphere, with consequences for societies and ecosystems (e.g. sea level rise). We performed the first assessment of the ability of global climate models to represent such heat storage in the climate subsystems. Models are able to reproduce the observed atmosphere heat content, with biases in the simulation of heat content in the rest of components. Read more
Regional variation in the effectiveness of methane-based and land-based climate mitigation options Earth System Dynamics DOI 10.5194/esd-12-513-2021 23 June 2021 We model greenhouse gas emission scenarios consistent with limiting global warming to either 1.5 or 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. We quantify the effectiveness of methane emission control and land-based mitigation options regionally. Our results highlight the importance of reducing methane emissions for realistic emission pathways that meet the global warming targets. For land-based mitigation, growing bioenergy crops on existing agricultural land is preferable to replacing forests. Read more
Robust increase of Indian monsoon rainfall and its variability under future warming in CMIP6 models Earth System Dynamics DOI 10.5194/esd-12-367-2021 10 June 2021 All state-of-the-art global climate models that contributed to the latest Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) show a robust increase in Indian summer monsoon rainfall that is even stronger than in the previous intercomparison (CMIP5). Furthermore, they show an increase in the year-to-year variability of this seasonal rainfall that crucially influences the livelihood of more than 1 billion people in India. Read more
Diverging land-use projections cause large variability in their impacts on ecosystems and related indicators for ecosystem services Earth System Dynamics DOI 10.5194/esd-12-327-2021 10 May 2021 Many projections of future land-use/-cover exist. We evaluate a number of these and determine the variability they cause in ecosystems and their services. We found that projections differ a lot in regional patterns, with some patterns being at least questionable in a historical context. Across ecosystem service indicators, resulting variability until 2040 was highest in crop production. Results emphasize that such variability should be acknowledged in assessments of future ecosystem provisions. Read more
A dynamical systems characterization of atmospheric jet regimes Earth System Dynamics DOI 10.5194/esd-12-233-2021 18 March 2021 Atmospheric jet streams are typically separated into primarily “eddy-driven” (or polar-front) jets and primarily “thermally driven” (or subtropical) jets. Here, we link the current understanding of dynamical jet maintenance mechanisms, mostly arising from conceptual or idealized models, to the phenomena observed in reanalysis data. Read more
Assessment of a full-field initialized decadal climate prediction system with the CMIP6 version of EC-Earth Earth System Dynamics DOI 10.5194/esd-12-173-2021 4 March 2021 In this paper, we present and evaluate the skill of an EC-Earth 3.3 decadal prediction system contributing to the Decadal Climate Prediction Project – Component A (DCPP-A). This prediction system is capable of skilfully simulating past global mean surface temperature variations at interannual and decadal forecast times as well as the local surface temperature in regions such as the tropical Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and most of the continental areas, although most of the skill comes from the representation of the external radiative forcings. Read more
A new view of heat wave dynamics and predictability over the easternMediterranean Earth System Dynamics DOI 10.5194/esd-12-133-2021 24 February 2021 Skillful forecasts of extreme weather events have a major socioeconomic relevance. Here, we compare two complementary approaches to diagnose the predictability of extreme weather: recent developments in dynamical systems theory and numerical ensemble weather forecasts. Read more
Synchronized spatial shifts of Hadley and Walker circulations Earth System Dynamics DOI 10.5194/esd-12-121-2021 22 February 2021 Here, by examining the spatiotemporal relationship between Hadley and Walker cells in observations and climate model experiments, we demonstrate that the seasonally evolving warm-pool sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the decay phase of an El Niño event generate a meridionally asymmetric Walker circulation response, which couples the zonal and meridional atmospheric overturning circulations. Read more
Evaluating the dependence structure of compound precipitation and wind speed extremes Earth System Dynamics DOI 10.5194/esd-12-1-2021 26 January 2021 Compound extremes such as heavy precipitation and extreme winds can lead to large damage. To date it is unclear how well climate models represent such compound extremes. Here we present a new measure to assess differences in the dependence structure of bivariate extremes. This measure is applied to assess differences in the dependence of compound precipitation and wind extremes between three model simulations and one reanalysis dataset in a domain in central Europe. Read more
Emergent constraints on equilibrium climate sensitivity in CMIP5: do they hold for CMIP6? Earth System Dynamics DOI 10.5194/esd-11-1233-2020 19 January 2021 As an important measure of climate change, the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) describes the change in surface temperature after a doubling of the atmospheric CO 2 concentration. Climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) show a wide range in ECS. Emergent constraints are a technique to reduce uncertainties in ECS with observational data. Emergent constraints developed with data from CMIP phase 5 show reduced skill and higher ECS ranges when applied to CMIP6 data. Read more
