ALBERT

Description: The Global Consortium for the Classification of Fungi and fungus-like taxa is an international initiative of more than 550 mycologists to develop an electronic structure for the classification of these organisms. The members of the Consortium originate from 55 countries/regions worldwide, from a wide range of disciplines, and include senior, mid-career and early-career mycologists and plant pathologists. The Consortium will publish a biannual update of the Outline of Fungi and funguslike taxa, to act as an international scheme for other scientists. Notes on all newly published taxa at or above the level of species will be prepared and published online on the Outline of Fungi website (https://www.outlineoffungi.org/), and these will be finally published in the biannual edition of the Outline of Fungi and fungus-like taxa. Comments on recent important taxonomic opinions on controversial topics will be included in the biannual outline. For example, ‘to promote a more stable taxonomy in Fusarium given the divergences over its generic delimitation’, or ‘are there too many genera in the Boletales?’ and even more importantly, ‘what should be done with the tremendously diverse ‘dark fungal taxa?’ There are undeniable differences in mycologists’ perceptions and opinions regarding species classification as well as the establishment of new species. Given the pluralistic nature of fungal taxonomy and its implications for species concepts and the nature of species, this consortium aims to provide a platform to better refine and stabilise fungal classification, taking into consideration views from different parties. In the future, a confidential voting system will be set up to gauge the opinions of all mycologists in the Consortium on important topics. The results of such surveys will be presented to the International Commission on the Taxonomy of Fungi (ICTF) and the Nomenclature Committee for Fungi (NCF) with opinions and percentages of votes for and against. Criticisms based on scientific evidence with regards to nomenclature, classifications, and taxonomic concepts will be welcomed, and any recommendations on specific taxonomic issues will also be encouraged; however, we will encourage professionally and ethically responsible criticisms of others’ work. This biannual ongoing project will provide an outlet for advances in various topics of fungal classification, nomenclature, and taxonomic concepts and lead to a community-agreed classification scheme for the fungi and fungus-like taxa. Interested parties should contact the lead author if they would like to be involved in future outlines.

Description: Seamless Prediction of weather and climate is a crucial way to promote services and is characterized by multi-time scale forecasting, usually from sub-seasonal to decadal prediction (S2D), which is considered to fill the gaps between weather and climate, near-term and long-term climate prediction. Improving prediction skills for extreme weather and climate disasters will undoubtedly contribute to disaster risk reduction and the sustainable development of the monsoon regions. The latest FGOALS-f2 ensemble prediction system is a seamless prediction established in 2019—four fully coupled components of FGOALS-f2, including atmospheric, oceanic, land, and sea ice modules. The dynamic core of the atmospheric component is FV3, and the critical process of the physical processes in the atmospheric part of FGOALS-f2 is a resolved convection precipitation scheme. FGOALS-f2 prediction system achieved not only 30-year forecasts but also began operational prediction in 2020. Recently, the FGOALS-f2 outputs of the sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) prediction have been submitted to WWRP/WCRP S2S Phase 2 Project. The prediction products cover global and regional areas, such as ENSO, MJO, TC, Arctic Sea Ice, Tibet Plateau, and surrounding Asian monsoon regions. Some typical applications of the seamless system in the monsoon region will be introduced.

Description: An extreme drought occurred over Southeast China (SEC) in August 2019. We demonstrate synergistic effects of mid-latitude and tropical circulation on this extreme event and highlight the impacts of the coupling and locking of two cyclones at different latitudes, which are otherwise ignored. We propose the relaying roles of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and western North Pacific in connection with the tropical convection and SEC precipitation. The equivalent-barotropic anticyclone over the TP and low-tropospheric cyclone over the western North Pacific both resulted from the positive Indian Ocean dipole and El Niño Modoki. The equivalent-barotropic cyclone over Northeast China originated from the dispersion of Rossby waves upstream along the subtropical waveguide associated with the North Atlantic tripole sea surface temperature anomaly pattern and the Rossby wave response to the TP precipitation deficiency. Further, they jointly contributed to this drought by inducing strong northerly wind anomalies in the entire troposphere over East China. These anomalous northerly winds led to decreased warm moisture from the south and substantial sinking motions, which inhibited the occurrence of the SEC local convection and precipitation. The SEC precipitation is closely related to convection over the Maritime Continent from a climate perspective. This relationship is verified by observations, linear baroclinic model experiments, and general circulation model sensitivity experiments with and without the TP, in which precipitation anomalies over the southern TP and Philippine Sea play important bridge roles. The results will advance the prediction of the SEC extreme drought events.

Description: Excessive precipitation was observed throughout the Yangtze River Valley during the 2020 Meiyu season. However, the mechanism of extreme precipitation over the upper reaches of the Yangtze River remains unclear. Our results show that the activities of high potential vorticity (PV) systems are responsible for the above-normal rainfall over both western and eastern China. The activity of high-PV systems is characterized by a prominent diurnal cycle, and their formation is closely related to the thermal contrast between the near-surface and lower atmosphere. In the morning, surface sensible heating increases sharply after sunrise, leading to a decrease in diabatic heating with height and weakened PV in the lower atmosphere. An increase in turbulence increases near-surface evaporation and reduces surface diabatic heating. At the same time, cloud formation increases diabatic heating at approximately 400 hPa. Consequently, the thermal contrast below 400 hPa leads to an increase in diabatic heating with height, favoring the generation of high-PV systems. Compared with the climatology, an excessive water vapor supply from the anomalous anticyclone forced by the Indian Ocean warming in 2020, contributes to a stronger thermal contrast and enhanced activity of high-PV systems over the TP. The arrival timing of high-PV systems at the eastern flank of the TP plays an important role in the subsequent development of these systems. Early arrival in the afternoon or evening is generally accompanied by air convergence and sufficient water vapor supply downstream of the TP, which favors the systems moving off the TP and influencing precipitation downstream.

Description: The atmospheric response to an axisymmetric forcing takes two distinct regimes: the thermal equilibrium (TE) regime dominating in the extra-tropics and the angular momentum conservation (AMC) regime prevailing in the tropics. The AMC regime can be further divided into two types: Hadley meridional circulation (H-AMC) forced by heating near the ITCZ with its rising/sinking arm located in the equatorial/subtropical region; and the monsoonal meridional circulation (M-AMC) forced by a subtropical source with its rising arm located in the subtropical region. Results from numerical experiments have demonstrated that the M-AMC in the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) area cannot occur without the present of the Tibetan Plateau. This is because the sensible heating driven air-pump (SHAP) of the large- scale mountain can generate a small absolute vorticity over the upper troposphere in subtropics, satisfying the generation criteria for the M-AMC. In the ASM area, the prevailing meridional circulation is the H-AMC type in winter but the M-AMC type in summer, and the ASM onset is characterized as gradual transition of the meridional circulation from the H-AMS to the M-AMC type. It is demonstrated that change of land-sea thermal contrast in the ASM area in early spring only initiates a shallow M-AMC over the Bay of Bengal. Only when the land-sea thermal contrast is intensified to certain extend so that the M-AMC develops over the middle and upper troposphere, can the ASM onset commences. This explains why the ASM onset is a delayed response to the reversal of land-sea thermal contrast.

Description: In this study, a new index based on the potential vorticity (PV) framework is proposed for the quantification of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) surface thermodynamic and dynamic forcing. The results show that the derived TP surface PV (SPV) includes the topographical effect, near-surface absolute vorticity, and land–air potential temperature differences. The climatological annual cycle of the SPV suggests that the TP transitions from a cooling to a heating source in April. The SPV reaches a maximum from June to August, which is consistent with the evolution of the Asian summer monsoon precipitation. Further analysis suggests that the intensified SPV in the boreal summer results in a low-level cyclonic circulation anomaly associated with increased precipitation over the southeastern slope of the TP and South China and decreased precipitation over the Indian Ocean. In winter, the intensified SPV is associated with local cold air and divergence at the TP surface.

Description: An extreme rainfall event occurred over the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze Basin (MLY) during the end of June 2016, which was attributable to a Tibetan Plateau (TP) Vortex (TPV) in conjunction with a Southwest China Vortex (SWCV). The physical mechanism for this event was investigated from potential vorticity (PV) and omega perspectives based on MERRA-2 reanalysis data. The cyclogenesis of the TPV over the northwestern TP along with the lower-tropospheric SWCV was found to involve a midtropospheric large-scale flow reconfiguration across western and eastern China with the formation of a high-amplitude Rossby wave. Subsequently, the eastward-moving TPV coalesced vertically with the SWCV over the eastern Sichuan Basin due to the positive vertical gradient of the TPV-related PV advection, leading the lower-tropospheric jet associated with moisture transport to intensify greatly and converge over the downstream MLY. The merged TPV–SWCV specially facilitated the upper-tropospheric isentropic-gliding ascending motion over the MLY. With the TPV-embedded mid-tropospheric trough migrating continuously eastward, the almost stagnant SWCV was re-separated from the overlying TPV, forming a more eastward-tilted high-PV configuration to trigger stronger ascent mechanisms including isentropic-gliding, isentropic-displacement, and diabatic heating-related ascending components over the MLY. This led to more intense rainfall. Quantitative PV diagnoses demonstrate that both the coalescence and subsequent re-separation processes of the TPV with the SWCV were largely dominated by horizontal PV advection and PV generation due to vertically nonuniform diabatic heating, as well as the feedback of condensation latent heating on the isentropic-displacement vertical velocity.

Description: The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is an important forcing in the global climate system. Compared to the extensive studies on the influence of the TP on surrounding climates, the variability of the surface potential vorticity (PV) over the TP (TPSPV) in response to other forcings is seldom discussed. In this article, the influence of the interannual mode of North Atlantic tripole sea surface temperature (NAT) on the TPSPV during boreal summer is investigated. Results show that the negative (positive) anomalous TPSPV is associated with anomalous unstable (stable) surface air, cyclonic (anticyclonic) surface circulation and rising (sinking) motion, which favors the stronger (weaker) East Asian summer monsoon and weaker (stronger) Indian summer monsoon. Further analysis indicates that the negative TPSPV is significantly correlated with a positive NAT mode with a cold center in the middle and warm centers in the subtropic and subpolar regions. This relationship is further testified by numerical experiments. The results further demonstrate that the positive NAT forcing can stimulate a Rossby wave train aloft, which passes Scandinavia, Ural and arrives at the TP and eventually triggers a low-level positive PV over the TP. Constrained by the PV-θ mechanism, the low-level positive PV favors a decrease in static stability near the surface and thus leads to a negative TPSPV. Under the positive feedback between TPSPV and vertical motion, the negative TPSPV could further strengthen. Therefore, the positive NAT phase could intensify the thermal and dynamic forcings of the TP in association with TPSPV during boreal summer.

Description: East Antarctica is the least understood continent involved in the assembly of Gondwana, a key stage in the global supercontinent cycle. Thick crust stretches from Dronning Maud Land to the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains, suggesting that the Kuunga Orogen, formed during the collision of India and East Antarctica during Gondwana assembly, had a significant impact on the Precambrian lithosphere of parts of interior East Antarctica. Geological and geophysical research has revealed key aspects of the collisional East African-Antarctic Orogen and the subduction-related Ross Orogen along the paleo-Pacific margin of Gondwana. However, the paths and architecture of these different orogens in the entirely ice sheet covered and remote interior of East Antarctica have remained more difficult to investigate, making it even more challenging to link subduction and collisional processes leading to Gondwana assembly and growth. Here we present a new satellite-conformed aeromagnetic anomaly compilation that includes data recently collected between the interior of Dronning Maud Land and South Pole, together with airborne and satellite gravity imaging and seismological and geological constraints that provide tantalising new views into different crustal provinces, cratons and orogens in interior East Antarctica. We propose that a suture zone, partially exposed in the Shackleton Range, may cross the continent linking major fault systems imaged in the Gamburtsev Province and Princess Elisabeth Land. By superimposing our geophysical layers on a new plate tectonic reconstruction, we explore the potential evolution of accretionary and collisional stages in East Antarctica during the assembly of Gondwana from Edicaran to Cambrian times.

Description: The achievement of several sustainable development goals and the Paris Climate Agreement depends on rapid progress towards sustainable food and land systems in all countries. We have built a flexible, collaborative modeling framework to foster the development of national pathways by local research teams and their integration up to global scale. Local researchers independently customize national models to explore mid-century pathways of the food and land use system transformation in collaboration with stakeholders. An online platform connects the national models, iteratively balances global exports and imports, and aggregates results to the global level. Our results show that actions toward greater sustainability in countries could sum up to 1 Mha net forest gain per year, 950 Mha net gain in the land where natural processes predominate, and an increased CO2 sink of 3.7 GtCO2e yr−1 over the period 2020–2050 compared to current trends, while average food consumption per capita remains above the adequate food requirements in all countries. We show examples of how the global linkage impacts national results and how different assumptions in national pathways impact global results. This modeling setup acknowledges the broad heterogeneity of socio-ecological contexts and the fact that people who live in these different contexts should be empowered to design the future they want. But it also demonstrates to local decision-makers the interconnectedness of our food and land use system and the urgent need for more collaboration to converge local and global priorities.