Better weather forecasting through satellite isotope data assimilation
Congratulations to postdoc Kinya Toride for recently publishing papers that show improvements in weather forecasts by assimilating water vapor isotopes in collaboration with University of Tokyo researchers.
GRL paper: https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL091698
Scientific reports paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-97476-0
How has lockdown in China impacted pollution?
New research published in Geophysical Research Letters by doctoral student Michael Diamond and Professor Robert Wood found that the February lockdown in China caused a drop in some types of air pollution, but not others. The researchers used 15 years of satellite data from Shanghai to compare air quality during COVID-19 to what it would have been normally.
To learn more about this research, check out the featured articles in UW News and Forbes.
Pristine air over Southern Ocean suggests early industrial era’s clouds not so different from today’s
Doctoral student Isabel McCoy, former doctoral student Daniel McCoy, and Professor Rob Wood recently had their work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences!
Their study uses satellite data over the Southern Hemisphere to understand the makeup of global clouds since the Industrial Revolution. The findings suggest that early industrial aerosol concentrations and cloud droplet numbers were much higher than many global climate models estimate.
Recent press for ship emissions research!
Research on ship emissions by Professor Rob Wood, doctoral student Michael Diamond, and research scientist Ryan Eastman has been featured recently in WIRED, Mongabay, and NASA Earth Observatory! Michael Diamond is quoted in all three articles!
The research is featured here for NASA Earth Observatory’s “Image of the Day” for June 9, 2020: https://earthobservatory.nasa.
The paper contributed background on aerosol-cloud-climate interactions for the following articles:
WIRED story about COVID-19 impacts on the climate: https://www.wired.
Mongabay story about whether a possible decrease in sulfate aerosol from COVID-19 could affect Arctic sea ice : https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/climate-conundrum-could-covid-19-be-linked-to-early-arctic-ice-melt/
What makes the wind?
Grad student Adam Sokol wrote a piece for The Conversation to teach kids about the wind! Check it out!
How active is the chemistry in wildfire smoke?
Check out this work collaborated on by Professor Joel Thornton, research scientist Ben Lee, postdoc Brett Palm, grad student Qiaoyun Peng, and undergrad Kira Melander! This new study highlights the role of HONO emissions with over 200 wildfire plumes sampled with the NCAR Earth Observing Laboratory C-130 aircraft.
Agricultural pickers in US to see unsafely hot workdays double by 2050
New research by Professor David Battisti and former postdoc Michelle Tigchelaar shows the number of unsafe days in crop-growing counties will jump to 39 days per season under 2 degrees Celsius warming, which is expected by 2050, and to 62 unsafe days under 4 degrees Celsius warming, which is expected by 2100. Check out the feature by UW News!
Prof. Daehyun Kim’s research on Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO)
Consider this: the U.S. West Coast has seen a decrease in rainfall between 1981-2018. UW scientists think a phenomenon called the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) might be to blame. A stormy disturbance that occurs several times a year in the tropics, the MJO is similar to the El Nino Southern Oscillation, which is notorious for generating extreme winter weather in the Pacific Northwest. Both are closely tied to changes in sea surface temperatures. But while El Nino always remains off the West Coast of South America, the MJO actually moves from the Indian Ocean and across the Pacific.
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Daehyun Kim, an atmospheric scientist focused on tropical weather patterns, contributed to recent research which suggests that trends in decreased rainfall here in the Pacific Northwest may be linked to warming in the Western Pacific Ocean, near Indonesia. The warming ocean affects weather patterns, increasing rainfall in the Amazon, southwest Africa and northern Australia, and reducing it in parts of Asia and Western North America.
As it travels over the tropics, the MJO affects local weather but it also impacts weather patterns thousands of miles away by changing the atmospheric currents moving around the earth. “The change in the West Coast precipitation is consistent with what we’d expect from the changes in the MJO life cycle,” said Kim. Washington, Oregon and California have less rainfall because the ocean on the other side of the globe is warming.
Researchers have drawn a link between changes in the MJO life cycle and weather events around the planet. The 2013-2014 California droughts, the 2011 east Africa drought, and major southeast Asia flooding in 2011 all occurred in years when this phenomenon spent more days than usual over Indonesia and the West Pacific. “As the climate warms, the temperature of the seawater [in the West Pacific] increases and that affects the life cycle of the MJO” said Kim. The disturbance spends less time over the Indian Ocean and more time over Indonesia and the West Pacific. This, in turn, corresponds to the decrease in rainfall that we’ve experienced over the past several decades in the Pacific Northwest.
Kim continues to research how the MJO forms and the conditions that change its formation. “There is some relationship between larger-scale circulation and the MJO. I am trying to understand which aspects of the average climate modulate the speed, size and formation of the MJO.”
How will continued warming in the West Pacific Ocean impact drought-prone areas of the U.S. West Coast? What could this mean for areas susceptible to wildfires? While we may not fully understand the details of these interactions, we do know that we can expect ongoing change to tropical disturbances, according to Kim. “We know for sure that the climate is warming and as the climate warms, the nature of the oscillation changes.”
From UW College of the Environment
Read more at Nature
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Undergraduate featured in UW’s Spring 2019 Transfer Newsletter
Undergraduate Joshua Driscol is featured in the UW’s Spring 2019 Transfer Newsletter
Vertical Structure and Microphysical Characteristics of Frontal Systems Passing over a Three-Dimensional Coastal Mountain Range
Authors: Joseph P. Zagrodnik, Lynn A. McMurdie, Robert A Houze, Jr. and Simone Tanelli
Abstract: As midlatitude cyclones pass over a coastal mountain range, the processes producing their clouds and precipitation are modified, leading to considerable spatial variability in precipitation amount and composition.