We demonstrate that an extended eddy-diffusivity mass-flux (EDMF) scheme can be used as a unified parameterization of subgrid-scale turbulence and convection across a range of dynamical regimes, from dry convective boundary layers, over shallow convection, to deep convection. Central to achieving this unified representation of subgrid-scale motions are entrainment and detrainment closures. We model entrainment and detrainment rates as a combination of turbulent and dynamical processes. Turbulent entrainment/detrainment is represented as downgradient diffusion between plumes and their environment. Dynamical entrainment/detrainment are proportional to a ratio of buoyancy difference and vertical velocity scale, partitioned based on buoyancy sorting approaches and modulated by a function of relative humidity difference in cloud layer to represent buoyancy loss owing to evaporation in mixing. We first evaluate the closures offline against entrainment and detrainment rates diagnosed from large-eddy simulations (LES) in which tracers are used to identify plumes, their turbulent environment, and mass and tracer exchanges between them. The LES are of canonical test cases of a dry convective boundary layer, shallow convection, and deep convection, thus spanning a broad range of regimes. We then compare the LES with the full EDMF scheme, including the new closures, in a single column model (SCM). The results show good agreement between the SCM and LES in quantities that are key for climate models, including thermodynamic profiles, cloud liquid water profiles, and profiles of higher moments of turbulent statistics. The SCM also captures well the diurnal cycle of convection and the onset of precipitation.

The intraseasonal variation of the Tibetan Plateau summer monsoon (TPSM) during 1979–2011 is investigated. The TPSM shows a dominant quasi-biweekly oscillation (QBWO) in most summer seasons, and its active/break phases are closely related to more/less precipitation over the Tibetan Plateau. We suggest that the TPSM QBWO is associated with a southeastward propagating nonstationary wave train in the middle and upper troposphere. It shows equivalent barotropic vertical structures over the midlatitudes and a baroclinic structure over the eastern Tibetan Plateau. Wave activity flux analysis indicates that it originates from northern Europe, which is an active center of the summertime Arctic Oscillation (AO). The AO also shows significant QBWO signals and leads TPSM QBWO by about 13 days. Phase composite and wave activity flux analyses of AO QBWO confirmed that the wave train influences TPSM QBWO, suggesting that AO plays an important role in the TPSM on a 10- to 20-day timescale.

An unanswered question in planetary science is how could the early Martian atmosphere have maintained a greenhouse effect sufficient to allow for liquid water on the surface? A recent study by Wordsworth et al. (DOI:10.1002/2016GL071766) suggested that previously unaccounted-for collision-induced absorption (CIA) by carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen gas (H2), and by CO2 and methane (CH4) could provide the additional atmospheric absorption needed to trap enough radiation to raise the Martian surface temperature above freezing. However, as CIA cross-sections for CO2-H2 and CO2-CH4 complexes do not exist in the literature, the authors could only use computational methods to simulate the CIA absorption cross-sections that they themselves identify in the study as needing experimental validation. Preliminary results will be presented from experimental measurements of the CIA cross-sections for CO2-H2 and CO2-CH4 complexes performed using Fourier Transform Spectroscopy. We have obtained Beam-time at the Canadian Light Source Far-IR beamline in late October and early November which will allow us to derive Cross-sections over a spectral range of 0-3000 cm-1 and a temperature range of 200-350 K. In addition to allowing us to experimentally validate the hypothesis of Wordsworth, the cross-sections so obtained can also be applied to other planetary systems with CO2-rich atmospheres, such as Venus, and will be useful to terrestrial spectroscopists.

Human activities have been changing deposition rate of the atmospheric reactive N over the last decades. The understanding of the process that rules the accumulation and deposition of reactive nitrogen in the environment still faces major gaps mainly in regions with lack of data as South America. In this work, we evaluated the atmospheric dry deposition of reactive nitrogen (Nr) using concentration measurements of different chemical species, in six sampling sites with different environmental characteristics in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, for a sampling period of approximately 24 months (2015-2017). We used the sampling system DELTA (Sampler for Atmospheric Sampling of Long Term), and ion chromatography method to determine the concentration of gaseous (NH3 and HNO3), and particulate (NH4+ and NO3-) chemical species in the atmosphere. The N-NH3 (gaseous) was the dominant form of Nr in the atmosphere at all sampling sites. The highest N-NH3 mean value was found near the urban area of the municipality of São Paulo (SP, 1.58 ± 0.73 μgN m-3) and the lowest mean value in the most eastern sampling site (0.26 ± 0.26 μgN m-3). The high values in the SP sampling site is related to the intense traffic in the metropolitan area and, also to waste management, industrial NH3, and human emissions as observed in other urban areas around the world. The particulate N-NH4+ is the second most common form of Nr in the São Paulo state atmosphere. The other forms of Nr in the atmosphere, the gaseous HNO3 and particulate NO3, represent only about 10% of the total Nr in the atmosphere each. The total gaseous Nr concentration was a factor of 1.7 larger than particulate Nr. The Nr deposition varied throughout the years. We did not observe a pattern of variation linked to meteorological characteristics of dry and wet season, as observed in other regions of the globe. However, we found good correlation with wind speed higher than 3.5 m s-1 and humidity. Our results provide the first spatial analysis of Nr deposition using in situ data in a Latin American region and will contribute to the understanding of nitrogen balance and to improve Nr deposition modelling approaches. This study was supported by the project Nitrogen cycling in Latin America: drivers, impacts and vulnerabilities (Nnet, IAI/CRN3005 and FAPESP 2012/06416-1), PCI Program of the MCTIC, and collaborators.

As the sea level rises, it is alarming that the threat from flooding induced by tropical cyclones would cause more severe damages to coastal regions worldwide. In order to address this threat, optimizing coastal protective or mitigation strategies is necessary, given limited resources. The optimization methodology must incorporate feedback from stakeholders for practical use. Multiple interviews were conducted by engineering model developers and social scientists with stakeholders who have first-hand knowledge and varied backgrounds in New York. The protective strategies have been tuned to the critical infrastructure's particular and contextual risks due to flood hazards by engaging and integrating stakeholders' knowledge on the interdependency of the infrastructures and other aspects after the first interview. The second interview was conducted for further model improvement.

Some of the Earth system data products such as those from NASA airborne and field investigations (a.k.a. campaigns), are highly heterogeneous and cross-disciplinary, making the data extremely challenging to manage. For example, airborne and field campaign measurements tend to be sporadic over a period of time, with large gaps. Data products generated are of various processing levels and utilized for a wide range of inter- and cross-disciplinary research and applications. Data and derived products have been historically stored in a variety of domain-specific standard (and some non-standard) formats and in various locations such as NASA Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs), NASA airborne science facilities, field archives, or even individual scientists’ computer hard drives. As a result, airborne and field campaign data products have often been managed and represented differently, making it onerous for data users to find, access, and utilize campaign data. Some difficulties in discovering and accessing the campaign data originate from the incomplete data product and contextual metadata that may contain details relevant to the campaign (e.g. campaign acronym and instrument deployment locations), but tend to lack other significant information needed to understand conditions surrounding the data. Such details can be burdensome to locate after the conclusion of a campaign. Utilizing consistent terminology, essential for improved discovery and reuse, is also challenging due to the variety of involved disciplines. To help address the aforementioned challenges faced by many repositories and data managers handling airborne and field data, this presentation will describe stewardship practices developed by the Airborne Data Management Group (ADMG) within the Interagency Implementation and Advanced Concepts Team (IMPACT) under the NASA’s Earth Science Data systems (ESDS) Program.

Our objective is to test and improve cloud subcolumn generators used for greater realism of scales in the radiation schemes and satellite simulators GCMs. For this purpose, we use as guidance water content fields from active observations by the CloudSat radar (CPR) and the CALIPSO lidar (CALIOP). Cloud products from active sensors while suffering significant sampling and coverage drawbacks have the advantage of resolving both horizontal and vertical variability which is what the generators are designed to produce. Our first order goal is to test the ability of the generators to deliver realistic 2D cloud extinction (cloud optical thickness) fields using, as in GCMs, limited domain-averaged information. Our reference 2D cloud extinction fields fully resolving horizontal (along the track of the satellites) and vertical variability come from combining CloudSat’s 2B-CWC-RVOD (liquid clouds) and CALIPSO-enhanced 2C-ICE (ice clouds) products. The combined fields were improved by introducing a simple scheme to fill liquid cloud extinction values identified as missing by comparing with coincident 2D (phase-specific) cloud masks provided by the CALIPSO-enhanced 2B-CLDCLASS-LIDAR CloudSat product. Our presentation will demonstrate the substantial improvements for low clouds brought by the filling scheme through comparisons with MODIS-Aqua cloud fraction distributions expressed in terms of joint cloud top pressure – cloud optical thickness histograms. Beyond global comparisons, the nature of the improvements become clearer when comparing mean joint histograms segregated by MODIS Cloud Regime (CR): improvement is by design superior for MODIS CRs dominated by low clouds. With the improved 2D extinction fields at hand, we test the skill of two subcolumn generators, one used in the COSP satellite simulator package, and one with more sophisticated cloud overlap implemented in the GEOS global model, to reproduce joint histograms that are statistically similar to the observed counterparts described above (as interpreted by COSP’s MODIS simulator). Our main comparison metrics are the Euclidean distance between observed and generator-produced global or near-global mean joint histograms, and the statistics of Euclidean distances calculated for individual scenes. One full year of data is used to assess whether the more sophisticated cloud generator produces clouds with greater realism in 2D cloud variability.

Wildfire smoke influences on air quality and atmospheric chemistry have been underscored by the increasing fire prevalence in recent years, and yet, the connection between fire, smoke emissions, and the subsequent transformation of this smoke in the atmosphere remains poorly constrained. Toward improving these linkages, we present a new method for coupling high-time-resolution satellite observations of fire radiative power (FRP) with in situ observations of smoke aerosols and trace gases. We apply this technique to thirteen fire plumes comprehensively characterized during the recent FIREX-AQ mission and show that changes in FRP directly translate into changes in conserved smoke tracers (CO2, CO, and black carbon aerosol) observed in the downwind smoke plume. The correlation is particularly strong for CO2 (mean r>0.9). This method is important for untangling the competing effects of changing fire behavior versus the influence of dilution and atmospheric processing on the down-wind evolution of measured smoke properties.

Although lightning discharge is not the only source or only physical phenomenon that affects the Schumann resonances, they have the highest contribution to the Schumann resonances oscillating between the ground the ionosphere. Schumann resonances are predicted through several different numerical models such as the transmission-line matrix model or partially uniform knee model. Here we report a different prediction method for Schumann resonances derived from the first principle fundamental physics combining both particle radiation patterns and the mathematical concept of the Golden ratio. This prediction allows the physical understanding of where Schumann resonances originate from radiation emitted by a particle that involves many frequencies that are not related to Schumann resonances. In addition, this method allows to predict the wave propagation direction of each frequency value in the Schumann frequency spectrum. Particles accelerated by lightning leader tip electric fields are capable of contributing most of the Schumann resonances. The radiation pattern of a single particle consists of many frequencies that there are only specific ones within this pattern that contribute to the Schumann radiation. Vast majority of Schumann resonances distribute quite nicely obeying the Golden ratio interval. This property used in conjunction with the full single-particle radiation patterns also revealed that high-frequency forward-backward peaking radiation patterns as well as low-frequency radiation patterns can contribute to Schumann resonances. Moreover, this also allows to locate them on the full radiation pattern. Furthermore, theoretical analysis using Golden ratio spiral predicts that there are more Schumann resonances in high frequency forward-backward peaking radiation pattern of relativistic particle than low frequency dipole radiation pattern.

Here we assess to what extent the Empirical Canadian High Arctic Ionospheric Model (E-CHAIM) can reproduce the climatological variations of vertical Total Electron Content (vTEC) in the Canadian sector. Within the auroral oval and polar cap, E-CHAIM is found to exhibit Root Mean Square (RMS) errors in vTEC as low 0.4 TECU during solar minimum summer but as high as 5.0 TECU during solar maximum equinox conditions. These errors represent an improvement of up to 8.5 TECU over the errors of the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) in the same region. At sub-auroral latitudes, E-CHAIM RMS errors range between 1.0 TECU and 7.4 TECU, with greatest errors during the equinoxes at high solar activity. This represents an up to 0.5 TECU improvement over the IRI during summer but worse performance by up to 2.4 TECU during the winter. Comparisons of E-CHAIM performance against in situ measurements from the European Space Agency’s Swarm mission are also conducted, ultimately finding behaviour consistent with that of vTEC. In contrast to the vTEC results, however, E-CHAIM and the IRI exhibit comparable performance at Swarm altitudes, except within the polar cap, where the IRI exhibits systematic underestimation of electron density by up to 1.0e11 e/m^3. Conjunctions with mid-latitude ionosondes demonstrate that E-CHAIM’s errors appear to result from compounding same-signed errors in its NmF2, hmF2, and topside thickness at these latitudes. Overall, E-CHAIM exhibits strong performance within the polar cap and auroral oval but performs comparably to the IRI at sub-auroral latitudes.

Ozone (O3) is an important trace and greenhouse gas in the atmosphere yet, and it threatens the ecological environment and human health at the ground level. Large-scale and long-term studies of O3 pollution in China are few due to highly limited direct measurements whose accuracy and density vary considerably. To overcome these limitations, we employed the ensemble learning method of the extremely randomized trees model by utilizing the spatiotemporal information of a large number of input variables from ground-based observations, remote sensing, atmospheric reanalysis, and model simulation products to estimate ground-level O3. This method yields uniform, long-term and continuous spatiotemporal information of daily maximum eight-hour average (MDA8) O3 over China (called ChinaHighO3) from 2013 to 2020 at a 10 km resolution without any missing values (spatial coverage = 100%). Evaluation against observations indicates that our O3 estimations and predictions are reliable with an average out-of-sample (out-of-station) coefficient of determination (CV-R2) of 0.87 (0.80) and root-mean-square error of 17.10 (21.10) μg/m3 [units here are at standard conditions (273K, 1013hPa)], and are also robust at varying spatial and temporal scales in China. This high-quality and full-coverage O3 dataset allows us to investigate the exposure and trends in O3 pollution at both long- and short-term scales. Trends in O3 concentrations varied substantially but showed an average growth rate of 2.49 μg/m3/yr (p < 0.001) from 2013 to 2020 in China. Most areas show an increasing trend since 2015, especially in summer ozone over the North China Plain. Our dataset accurately captured a recent national and regional O3 pollution event from 23 April to 8 May in 2020. Rapid increase and recovery of O3 concentrations associated with variations in anthropogenic emissions were seen during and after the COVID-19 lockdown, respectively. This carefully vetted and smoothed dataset is valuable for studies on air pollution and environmental health in China.

We present simultaneous observations of VLF emissions with periodic (2 or 4 s) bursts by Van Allen Probe near geomagnetic equator and Kannuslehto and Lovozero ground-based sites. The repetition period and ground–spacecraft delay are consistent with guided whistler wave propagation between conjugate ionospheres. In contrast to lightning whistlers, the group velocity dispersion is not accumulated from one burst to another, thus implying a nonlinear mechanism of its compensation. Two regimes are observed. In one regime, Poynting flux direction alternates in the magnetosphere, and the burst period is twice lower than on the ground, that corresponds to single wave packet bouncing along the field line. This regime is switched to the other one, with burst period unchanged in the magnetosphere but halved on the ground. In the second regime, no alternating Poynting flux direction is observed. This second regime corresponds to two symmetrically propagating wave packets synchronously meeting at the equator.

Recently, Anderson et al. (2012, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1222978, 2017, https://doi. org/10.1073/pnas.1619318114) and Anderson and Clapp (2018, https://doi.org/10.1039/C7CP08331A) proposed that summertime convectively injected water vapor over North America could lead to stratospheric ozone depletion through halogenic catalytic reactions. Such ozone loss would reduce the ozone column and increase erythemal daily dose (EDD). Using 10 years of observations over the North American monsoon region from the Aura Ozone Monitoring Instrument, we find that the column ozone and EDD has a ~0.8–0.9 spatial correlation with lower stratospheric water vapor measured by the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder. We show that this correlation appears to be due to the elevation of the monsoonal tropopause and associated monsoonal convection. The increase in tropopause altitude reduces the ozone column and increases EDD. We see no apparent evidence of substantial heterogeneous chemical ozone loss in lower stratospheric ozone coincident with the stratospheric monsoonal water vapor enhancement.

Lossless compression can reduce climate data storage by 30-40%. In general, further reductions require lossy compression that also reduces precision. Fortunately, geoscientific models and measurements generate false precision (scientifically meaningless data bits) that can be eliminated without sacrificing scientifically meaningful data. We introduce Bit Grooming, a lossy compression algorithm that removes the bloat due to false- precision, those bits and bytes beyond the meaningful precision of the data. We evaluated Bit Grooming against competitors Linear Packing, Layer Packing, and GRIB2/JPEG2000.

The net surface water flux (evaporation minus precipitation minus runoff, E-P-R) of the Atlantic Ocean is approximately 0.4 – 0.6 Sv (1 Sv = 10^9 kg s-1) larger than that of the Pacific Ocean, as shown in atmospheric and oceanic reanalyses and by oceanographic estimates. This asymmetry is linked to the asymmetry in sea surface salinity and the existence of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. It is shown that the reason for the asymmetry in E-P-R is greater precipitation per unit area over the Pacific south of 30N, while evaporation rates are similar over both basins. It is further argued that the Pacific Ocean is anomalous compared to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in terms of atmospheric moisture flux convergence and precipitation across the tropics and subtropics. To clarify the mechanism by which water vapour is exported out of the Atlantic basin and imported into the Pacific, we use an air mass trajectory model driven by ERA-Interim reanalysis. Using 12-hourly releases of 14-day back trajectories on the boundaries of ocean drainage basins over the period 2010-2014, we are able to partition the atmospheric moisture fluxes between basins according to their origins (i.e. last contact with the boundary layer). We show that at most a quarter of the E-P-R asymmetry is explained by higher moisture export to the Arctic and Southern basins from the Atlantic than from the Pacific. The main contributions come from differences in the longitudinal atmospheric transport of moisture between the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific basins. In particular, during the Asian summer monsoon the recurvature of the low level flow in the Somali Jet results in a much weaker westward moisture transport from the Indian into the Atlantic basin than across Central America (where it is similar to the zonal average) while there is stronger eastward transport from the Indian to Pacific basins. The net effect is stronger moisture convergence into the Pacific, but weaker into the Atlantic. In contrast to previous thinking, the role of the moisture flux across Central America in the asymmetry, albeit significant, is not dominant.

The spatio-temporal distribution characteristics of thermospheric mass density have been given more attention with an increasing demand for spacecraft launches and low Earth orbital prediction. More and more patterns of spatial structure and temporal variation are being discovered. Notwithstanding these developments, the study of spatio-temporal coupling in characteristics analysis remains quite limited. In this study, we use a co-clustering method to explore and analyze the spatio-temporal coupling structural characteristics of thermospheric mass density. The processed GOCE satellite dataset is divided into 5 temporal clusters and 20 spatial clusters by the co-clustering method. In terms of spatial structure, the density has an obvious zonal distribution structure and hemispheric asymmetry. Moreover, due to the influence of the Earth’s magnetic field, there is an average angle about 2.00° between the band structure and the latitudinal circle. In terms of temporal structure, the temporal patterns of density can be grouped into five period types, namely the quiet period, the moderate activity period, the event period, the oscillation period and the recovery period. And significant positive correlation can be found between the F10.7 indices and the temporal density variation. This study explores the spatial structure and temporal pattern of thermospheric mass density and its driving forces from the perspective of spatio-temporal coupling based on a statistical method, which can provide a new idea of spatio-temporal coupling method for spatio-temporal evolution of thermospheric mass density.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is a solar mission in an inclined geosynchronous orbit. Since commissioning, images acquired by Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument on-board the SDO have frequently displayed “spikes”, pixel regions yielding extreme number of digital counts. These are theorized to occur from energetic electron collisions with the instrument detector system. These spikes are regularly removed from AIA Level 1.0 images to produce clean and reliable data. A study of historical data has found over 100 trillion spikes in the past decade. This project correlates spike detection frequency with radiation environment parameters in order to generate an augmented data product from SDO. We conduct a correlation study between SDO/AIA data and radiation belt activity within the SDO’s orbit. By extracting radiation “spike” data from the SDO/AIA images, we produce a comprehensive data product which is correlated not only with geomagnetic parameters such as Kp, Ap and Sym-H but also with the electron and proton fluxes measured by the GOES-14 satellite. As a result, we find that AIA spikes are highly correlated with the GOES-14 electrons detected by the MAGED and EPEAD instruments at the equator (where the two satellites meet) with Spearman’s Correlation values of ρ=0.73 and ρ=0.53 respectively, while a weaker correlation of ρ=0.47 is shown with MAGPD protons for the two year period where both missions returned data uninterruptedly. This correlation proves that the SDO spike data can be proven useful for characterizing the Van Allen radiation belt, especially at areas where other satellites cannot.

We describe new publicly-available, multi-year formaldehyde (HCHO) data records from the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) nadir mapper (NM) instruments on the Suomi NPP and NOAA-20 satellites. The OMPS-NM instruments measure backscattered UV light over the globe once per day, with spatial resolutions close to nadir of 50 × 50 km² (OMPS/Suomi-NPP) and 17 × 17 km² or 12 × 17 km² (OMPS/NOAA-20). After a preliminary instrument line shape and wavelength calibration using on-orbit observations, we use the backscatter measurements in a direct spectral fit of radiances, in combination with a nadir reference spectrum collected over a clean area, to determine slant columns of HCHO. The slant columns are converted to vertical columns using air mass factors derived through scene-by-scene radiative transfer calculations. Finally, a correction is applied to account for background HCHO in the reference spectrum, as well as any remaining high-latitude biases. We investigate the consistency of the OMPS products from Suomi NPP and NOAA-20 using long-term monthly means over 12 geographic regions, and also compare the products with publicly-available TROPOMI HCHO observations. OMPS/Suomi-NPP and OMPS/NOAA-20 monthly mean HCHO vertical columns are highly consistent (r = 0.98), with low proportional (2 %) and offset (2×10¹⁴ molecules cm⁻²) biases. OMPS HCHO monthly means are also well-correlated with those from TROPOMI (r = 0.92), although they are consistently 10±16 % larger in polluted regions (columns >8×10¹⁵ molecules cm⁻²). These differences result primarily from differences in air mass factors.

Surface charging properties of a non-conducting surface that has a deep cavity and is in contact with the solar wind plasma are investigated by means of the particle-in-cell plasma simulations. The modeled topography is intended with a portion of irregular surfaces found on solid planetary bodies. The simulations have revealed unconventional charging features in that the cavity bottom is charged up to positive values even without any electron emission processes such as photoemission, provided that the surface location is accessible to a portion of incoming solar wind ions. The major driver of the positive charging is identified as drifting ions of the solar wind plasma, and an uncommon current ordering where ion currents exceed electron currents is established at the innermost part of the deep cavity. This also implies that the cavity bottom surface may have a positive potential of several hundred volts, corresponding to the kinetic energy of the ions. The present study also clarifies the role of photoelectrons in developing the distinctive charging environment inside the cavity. The photoemitted electrons can no longer trigger positive charging at the cavity bottom, but rather exhibit the effect of relaxing positive potentials caused by the solar wind ions. The identified charging process, which are primarily due to the solar wind ions, are localized at the depths of the cavity and may be one possible scenario for generating intense electric fields inside the cavity.

This work uses the Specified Dynamics-Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model with Ionosphere/Thermosphere eXtension (SD-WACCM-X) to determine and explain the seasonality of the migrating semidiurnal tide (SW2) components of tropical upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere (UMLT) temperature, zonal-wind and meridional-wind. This work also quantifies aliasing due to SW2 in satellite-based tidal estimates. Results show that during equinox seasons, the vertical profile of tropical UMLT temperature SW2 and zonal wind SW2’s amplitudes have a double peak structure while they, along with meridional wind SW2, have a single peak structure in their amplitudes in June solstice. Hough mode reconstruction reveals that a linear combination of 5 SW2 Hough modes cannot fully reproduced these features. Tendency analysis reveals that for temperature, the adiabatic term, non-linear advection term and linear advection term are important. For the winds, the classical terms, non-linear advection term, linear advection term and gravity wave drag are important. Results of our alias analysis then indicate that SW2 can induce an ~60% alias in zonal-mean and DW1 components calculated from sampling like that of the Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics satellite and the Aura satellite. This work concludes that in-situ generation by wave-wave interaction and/or by gravity waves play significant roles in the seasonality of tropical UMLT temperature SW2, zonal wind SW2 and meridional wind SW2. The alias analysis further adds that one cannot simply assume SW2 in the tropical UMLT is negligible.

Recent worldwide heatwaves have shattered temperature records in many regions. In this study, we applied a dynamical downscaling method on the high-resolution version of the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM-1-2-HR) to obtain projections of the summer thermal environments and heatwaves in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) considering three Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5) in the middle and late 21st century. Results indicated that relative to the temperatures in the 2010s, the mean increases in the summer daytime and nighttime temperatures in the 2040s will be 0.7–0.8 °C and 0.9–1.1 °C, respectively. In the 2090s, they will be 0.5–3.1 °C and 0.7–3.4 °C, respectively. SSP1-2.6 is the only scenario in which the temperatures in the 2090s are expected to be lower than those in the 2040s. Compared with those in the 2010s, hot extremes are expected to be more frequent, more intense, more extensive, and longer-lasting in the future in the SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios. In the 2010s, a heatwave occurred in the PRD lasted for 6 days on average, with a mean daily maximum temperature of 34.4 °C. In the 2040s, the heatwave duration and intensity are expected to increase by 2–3 days and 0.2–0.4 °C in all three scenarios. In the 2090s, the increase in these values will be 23 days and 36.0 °C in SSP5-8.5. Moreover, a 10-year extreme high temperature in the 2010s is expected to occur at a monthly frequency from June to September.

The autumn precipitation in the central region of China (APCC) can exert great influences to the production and people’s livelihood. With the use of reanalysis data from 1979−2020, we found a simultaneous relationship between the interannual variability of APCC and the second mode of the 200-hPa meridional wind field over the Eurasian continent, which featured a ‘+-+’ wave-like pattern in autumn (denoted by EC-a). When EC-a is in a positive phase, the coupling of the positive geopotential height with anticyclonic anomalies in the upper level and low sea level pressure over the central China provides a conducive moisture and dynamic condition for precipitation, which is reversed in the negative phase. As indicated by the diagnostic equation, the local vertical motion anomaly is mainly dependent on the temperature advection anomaly by the perturbed wind acting on mean temperature. The strengthened anticyclonic wind shear over East Asia reinforces the southeasterly, which induces warmer air to move northward, resulting in a positive temperature advection and hence enhancing local ascending motion. Moreover, wave flux analysis and numerical simulations show that the EC-a wave train could be triggered by an abnormal dipole pattern SST over the North Atlantic Ocean, which acts as a critical pacemaker on the variability of EC-a.

In response to north-south pressure gradients set by the annual march of the Sun, a cross-equatorial flow that turns to become a low-level Somali jet at around $10^{\circ}$ N is established in the lower troposphere over the Indian ocean. This flow plays a fundamental role in the Indian monsoon. A mechanistic understanding of drivers of this flow is lacking. Here we present a seasonal-mean analysis of the Kinetic Energy (KE) budget of the low-level flow using high spatiotemporal resolution ERA5 reanalysis to identify sources and sinks of KE. We find that the largest KE generation occurs around east African orography where the Somali jet forms while a significant KE is also generated over western Ghats and the Madagascar Island (‘hot spots’). These regions are distant from core monsoon precipitation regions, suggesting that local circulations driven by condensation do not directly produce the bulk of KE during monsoons. A unique KE balance supports the generation of Somali jet, with KE generation balanced by nonlinear KE advection as it forms. Over oceans, KE generation occurs mainly due to cross-isobaric meridional winds in the boundary layer. In contrast, over east African highlands and western Ghats KE generation maximizes just above the boundary layer and mainly occurs due to interaction of flow with orography. We propose a simple decomposition of lower tropospheric KE generation into contributions from surface pressure, orography and free-tropospheric gradients that corroborates the important role played by surface pressure gradients once adjusted for effects of orography.

This study examines how the congestus mode of tropical convection is expressed in numerical simulations of radiative-convective equilibrium (RCE). We draw insights from the ensemble of cloud-resolving models participating in the RCE Model Intercomparison Project (RCEMIP) and from a new ensemble of two-dimensional RCE simulations. About half of the RCEMIP models produce a congestus circulation that is distinct from the deep and shallow circulation modes. In both ensembles, congestus strength is associated with large-scale convective aggregation. Aggregation dries out the upper troposphere, which allows moist congestus outflow to undergo strong radiative cooling. The cooling generates divergence that promotes continued congestus overturning (a positive feedback). This mechanism is fundamentally similar to the driving of shallow circulations by radiative cooling at the top of the surface boundary layer. Aggregation and congestus invigoration are also associated with enhanced static stability throughout the troposphere. Changes in entrainment cooling are found to play an important role in stability enhancement, as has been suggested previously. A modeling experiment shows that enhanced stability is not necessary for congestus invigoration; rather, invigoration itself contributes to midlevel stability enhancement via its impact on the vertical profile of radiative cooling. When present, congestus circulations have a large impact on the mean RCE atmospheric state; for this reason, their inconsistent representation in models and their impact on the real tropical atmosphere warrant further scrutiny.