ALBERT

Description: Review Article: On the relation between the seismic activity and the Hurst exponent of the geomagnetic field at the time of the 2000 Izu swarm Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2189-2194, 2013 Author(s): F. Masci and J. N. Thomas Many papers document the observation of earthquake-related precursory signatures in geomagnetic field data. However, the significance of these findings is ambiguous because the authors did not adequately take into account that these signals could have been generated by other sources, and the seismogenic origin of these signals have not been validated by comparison with independent datasets. Thus, they are not reliable examples of magnetic disturbances induced by the seismic activity. Hayakawa et al. (2004) claim that at the time of the 2000 Izu swarm the Hurst exponent of the Ultra-Low-Frequency (ULF: 0.001–10 Hz) band of the geomagnetic field varied in accord with the energy released by the seismicity. The present paper demonstrates that the behaviour of the Hurst exponent was insufficiently investigated and also misinterpreted by the authors. We clearly show that during the Izu swarm the changes of the Hurst exponent were strongly related to the level of global geomagnetic activity and not to the increase of the local seismic activity.

Description: Forest fire danger rating in complex topography – results from a case study in the Bavarian Alps in autumn 2011 Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2157-2167, 2013 Author(s): C. Schunk, C. Wastl, M. Leuchner, C. Schuster, and A. Menzel Forest fire danger rating based on sparse meteorological stations is known to be potentially misleading when assigned to larger areas of complex topography. This case study examines several fire danger indices based on data from two meteorological stations at different elevations during a major drought period. This drought was caused by a persistent high pressure system, inducing a pronounced temperature inversion and its associated thermal belt with much warmer, dryer conditions in intermediate elevations. Thus, a massive drying of fuels, leading to higher fire danger levels, and multiple fire occurrences at mid-slope positions were contrasted by moderate fire danger especially in the valleys. The ability of fire danger indices to resolve this situation was studied based on a comparison with the actual fire danger as determined from expert observations, fire occurrences and fuel moisture measurements. The results revealed that, during temperature inversion, differences in daily cycles of meteorological parameters influence fire danger and that these are not resolved by standard meteorological stations and fire danger indices (calculated on a once-a-day basis). Additional stations in higher locations or high-resolution meteorological models combined with fire danger indices accepting at least hourly input data may allow reasonable fire danger calculations under these circumstances.

Description: Preface "Landslide hazard and risk assessment at different scales" Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2169-2171, 2013 Author(s): P. Reichenbach, A. Günther, and T. Glade

Description: Influence of microphysical schemes on atmospheric water in the Weather Research and Forecasting model Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 4563-4601, 2013 Author(s): F. Cossu and K. Hocke This study examines how different microphysical parameterization schemes influence orographically-induced precipitation and the distributions of hydrometeors and water vapour for mid-latitude summer conditions in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. A high-resolution two-dimensional idealized simulation is used to assess the differences between the schemes in which a moist air flow is interacting with a bell-shaped 2 km high mountain. Periodic lateral boundary conditions are chosen to recirculate atmospheric water in the domain. It is found that the 13 selected microphysical schemes conserve the water in the model domain. The gain or loss of water is less than 0.81% over a simulation time interval of 61 days. The differences of the microphysical schemes in terms of the distributions of water vapour, hydrometeors and accumulated precipitation are presented and discussed. The Kessler scheme, the only scheme without ice-phase processes, shows final values of cloud liquid water 14 times greater than the other schemes. The differences among the other schemes are not as extreme, but still they differ up to 79% in water vapour, up to 10 times in hydrometeors and up to 64% in accumulated precipitation at the end of the simulation. The microphysical schemes also differ in the surface evaporation rate. The WRF single-moment 3-class scheme has the highest surface evaporation rate compensated by the highest precipitation rate. The different distributions of hydrometeors and water vapour of the microphysical schemes induce differences up to 49 W m −2 in the downwelling shortwave radiation and up to 33 W m −2 in the downwelling longwave radiation.

Description: Linking ICT and society in early warning and adaptation to hydrological extremes in mountains Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2253-2270, 2013 Author(s): C. de Jong The assessment of the societal impact of hydrological extremes is particularly important in mountain regions, since mountains can be considered both as the generators and victims of extreme events. ICT can provide a powerful tool for transmitting hydro-meteorological information to predict, prepare and adapt to such events. However, in remote regions, such as mountains, the poles, deserts and islands, preventive and adaptive measures are often restricted by data availability and lack and/or incoherence of data networks. This paper distinguishes between early warning of floods and droughts, emphasising the latter in particular in mountains and explores the possibilities of enhancing the role of society in data collection, the identification, activation and application of stakeholder knowledge and transferral of data from gauged to ungauged catchments.

Description: Can we determine what controls the spatio-temporal distribution of d-excess and 17 O-excess in precipitation using the LMDZ general circulation model? Climate of the Past, 9, 2173-2193, 2013 Author(s): C. Risi, A. Landais, R. Winkler, and F. Vimeux Combined measurements of the H 2 18 O and HDO isotopic ratios in precipitation, leading to second-order parameter D-excess, have provided additional constraints on past climates compared to the H 2 18 O isotopic ratio alone. More recently, measurements of H 2 17 O have led to another second-order parameter: 17 O-excess. Recent studies suggest that 17 O-excess in polar ice may provide information on evaporative conditions at the moisture source. However, the processes controlling the spatio-temporal distribution of 17 O-excess are still far from being fully understood. We use the isotopic general circulation model (GCM) LMDZ to better understand what controls d-excess and 17 O-excess in precipitation at present-day (PD) and during the last glacial maximum (LGM). The simulation of D-excess and 17 O-excess is evaluated against measurements in meteoric water, water vapor and polar ice cores. A set of sensitivity tests and diagnostics are used to quantify the relative effects of evaporative conditions (sea surface temperature and relative humidity), Rayleigh distillation, mixing between vapors from different origins, precipitation re-evaporation and supersaturation during condensation at low temperature. In LMDZ, simulations suggest that in the tropics convective processes and rain re-evaporation are important controls on precipitation D-excess and 17 O-excess. In higher latitudes, the effect of distillation, mixing between vapors from different origins and supersaturation are the most important controls. For example, the lower d-excess and 17 O-excess at LGM simulated at LGM are mainly due to the supersaturation effect. The effect of supersaturation is however very sensitive to a parameter whose tuning would require more measurements and laboratory experiments. Evaporative conditions had previously been suggested to be key controlling factors of d-excess and 17 O-excess, but LMDZ underestimates their role. More generally, some shortcomings in the simulation of 17 O-excess by LMDZ suggest that general circulation models are not yet the perfect tool to quantify with confidence all processes controlling 17 O-excess.

Description: The environmental impact of the Puyehue–Cordon Caulle 2011 volcanic eruption on Buenos Aires Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2319-2330, 2013 Author(s): G. B. Raga, D. Baumgardner, A. G. Ulke, M. Torres Brizuela, and B. Kucienska On 4 June 2011, the volcanic complex Puyehue–Cordon Caulle located in the Chilean Andes erupted, producing a plume of gases and particles that eventually circled the Southern Hemisphere, disrupting air travel and depositing ash in large quantities. On eight occasions, the plume passed over the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, leading local authorities to close the two international airports. The eruption occurred during an on-going field campaign when measurements of the properties of atmospheric aerosol particles were being made in Buenos Aires as part of a year-long study of the concentration and optical properties of aerosol at one site in the city. The suite of instruments deployed in Buenos Aires were not tailored to measurements of volcanic ash, but were designed to characterize urban conditions. Nevertheless, these measurements were analysed for periods when vertical profiles of aerosol backscatter, made with a ceilometer, clearly showed the presence of the volcano plume over the research site and resulted in airport closure. Aerosol optical thickness derived from AERONET, MODIS and a ceilometer at our research site, all show enhanced values clearly indicating that the three platforms identified the volcanic plume simultaneously. However, a quantitative comparison of the different estimates proves difficult, suggesting large spatial and temporal variability of the plume. Our results indicate that the number concentration of condensation nuclei (CN), the mass concentration of particle-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PPAH) and the light absorption coefficient exceeded the average background values by more than one standard deviation during the events of volcanic plume. The anomalous concentrations of CN suggest new particle formation, presumably from the conversion of SO 2 , while the anomalous concentrations of PPAH may come from the uptake of PAHs on the plume particles or from chemical reactions on the surface of plume particles. The anomalous absorption coefficients indicate that plume particles may contain certain compounds that can absorb radiation at 550 nm. Another possible explanation consistent with the observations is the scavenging of black carbon from urban sources as the plume descends through the boundary layer to the surface. In addition, the volcanic plume influenced the local meteorology resulting in a decrease of the temperature when compared to the average temperature during days with no plume present.

Description: Contribution of land use changes to future flood damage along the river Meuse in the Walloon region Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2301-2318, 2013 Author(s): A. Beckers, B. Dewals, S. Erpicum, S. Dujardin, S. Detrembleur, J. Teller, M. Pirotton, and P. Archambeau Managing flood risk in Europe is a critical issue because climate change is expected to increase flood hazard in many european countries. Beside climate change, land use evolution is also a key factor influencing future flood risk. The core contribution of this paper is a new methodology to model residential land use evolution. Based on two climate scenarios ("dry" and "wet"), the method is applied to study the evolution of flood damage by 2100 along the river Meuse. Nine urbanization scenarios were developed: three of them assume a "current trend" land use evolution, leading to a significant urban sprawl, while six others assume a dense urban development, characterized by a higher density and a higher diversity of urban functions in the urbanized areas. Using damage curves, the damage estimation was performed by combining inundation maps for the present and future 100 yr flood with present and future land use maps and specific prices. According to the dry scenario, the flood discharge is expected not to increase. In this case, land use changes increase flood damages by 1–40%, to €334–462 million in 2100. In the wet scenario, the relative increase in flood damage is 540–630%, corresponding to total damages of €2.1–2.4 billion. In this extreme scenario, the influence of climate on the overall damage is 3–8 times higher than the effect of land use change. However, for seven municipalities along the river Meuse, these two factors have a comparable influence. Consequently, in the "wet" scenario and at the level of the whole Meuse valley in the Walloon region, careful spatial planning would reduce the increase in flood damage by no more than 11–23%; but, at the level of several municipalities, more sustainable spatial planning would reduce future flood damage to a much greater degree.

Description: Estimating soil suction from electrical resistivity Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2369-2379, 2013 Author(s): E. Piegari and R. Di Maio Soil suction and resistivity strongly depend on the degree of soil saturation and, therefore, both are used for estimating water content variations. The main difference between them is that soil suction is measured using tensiometers, which give point information, while resistivity is obtained by tomography surveys, which provide distributions of resistivity values in large volumes, although with less accuracy. In this paper, we have related soil suction to electrical resistivity with the aim of obtaining information about soil suction changes in large volumes, and not only for small areas around soil suction probes. We derived analytical relationships between soil matric suction and electrical resistivity by combining the empirical laws of van Genuchten and Archie. The obtained relationships were used to evaluate maps of soil suction values in different ashy layers originating in the explosive activity of the Mt Somma-Vesuvius volcano (southern Italy). Our findings provided a further example of the high potential of geophysical methods in contributing to more effective monitoring of soil stress conditions; this is of primary importance in areas where rainfall-induced landslides occur periodically.

Description: Sulfur dioxide emissions from Papandayan and Bromo, two Indonesian volcanoes Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2399-2407, 2013 Author(s): P. Bani, Surono, M. Hendrasto, H. Gunawan, and S. Primulyana Indonesia hosts 79 active volcanoes, representing 14% of all active volcanoes worldwide. However, little is known about their SO 2 contribution into the atmosphere, due to isolation and access difficulties. Existing SO 2 emission budgets for the Indonesian archipelago are based on extrapolations and inferences as there is a considerable lack of field assessments of degassing. Here, we present the first SO 2 flux measurements using differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) for Papandayan and Bromo, two of the most active volcanoes in Indonesia. Results indicate mean SO 2 emission rates of 1.4 t d −1 from the fumarolic activity of Papandayan and more than 22–32 t d −1 of SO 2 released by Bromo during a declining eruptive phase. These DOAS results are very encouraging and pave the way for a better evaluation of Indonesian volcanic emissions.

Description: Interviewing insights regarding the fatalities inflicted by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2173-2187, 2013 Author(s): M. Ando, M. Ishida, Y. Hayashi, C. Mizuki, Y. Nishikawa, and Y. Tu One hundred fifty survivors of the 11 March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (Tohoku-oki earthquake) ( M w = 9.0) were interviewed to study the causes of deaths from the associated tsunami in coastal areas of Tohoku. The first official tsunami warning underestimated the height of the tsunami and 40% of the interviewees did not obtain this warning due to immediate blackouts and a lack of communication after the earthquake. Many chose to remain in dangerous locations based on the underestimated warning and their experiences with previous smaller tsunamis and/or due to misunderstanding the mitigating effects of nearby breakwaters in blocking incoming tsunamis. Some delayed their evacuation to perform family safety checks, and in many situations, the people affected misunderstood the risks involved in tsunamis. In this area, three large tsunamis have struck in the 115 yr preceding the 2011 tsunami. These tsunamis remained in the collective memory of communities, and numerous measures against future tsunami damage, such as breakwaters and tsunami evacuation drills, had been implemented. Despite these preparedness efforts, approximately 18 500 deaths and cases of missing persons occurred. The death rate with the age of 65 and above was particularly high, four times higher than that with other age groups. These interviews indicate that deaths resulted from a variety of reasons, but if residents had taken immediate action after the major ground motion stopped, most residents might have been saved. Education about the science behind earthquakes and tsunamis could help save more lives in the future.

Description: AnaWEGE: a weather generator based on analogues of atmospheric circulation Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 4745-4774, 2013 Author(s): P. Yiou This paper presents a stochastic weather generator based on analogues of circulation (AnaWEGE). Analogues of circulation have been a promising paradigm to analyse climate variability and its extremes. The weather generator uses precomputed analogues of sea-level pressure over the North Atlantic. The stochastic rules of the generator constrain the continuity in time of the simulations. The generator then simulates spatially coherent time series of a climate variable, drawn from meteorological observations. The weather generator is tested for European temperatures, and for winter and summer seasons. The biases in temperature quantiles and autocorrelation are rather small compared to observed variability. The ability of simulating extremely hot summers and cold winters is also assessed.

Description: Methodological aspects of a pattern-scaling approach to produce global fields of monthly means of daily maximum and minimum temperature Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 4833-4882, 2013 Author(s): S. Kremser, G. E. Bodeker, and J. Lewis A Climate Pattern-Scaling Model (CPSM) that simulates global patterns of climate change, for a prescribed emissions scenario, is described. A CPSM works by quantitatively establishing the statistical relationship between a climate variable at a specific location (e.g. daily maximum surface temperature, T max ) and one or more predictor time series (e.g. global mean surface temperature, T global ) – referred to as the "training" of the CPSM. This training uses a regression model to derive fit-coefficients that describe the statistical relationship between the predictor time series and the target climate variable time series. Once that relationship has been determined, and given the predictor time series for any greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions scenario, the change in the climate variable of interest can be reconstructed – referred to as the "application" of the CPSM. The advantage of using a CPSM rather than a typical atmosphere-ocean global climate model (AOGCM) is that the predictor time series required by the CPSM can usually be generated quickly using a simple climate model (SCM) for any prescribed GHG emissions scenario and then applied to generate global fields of the climate variable of interest. The training can be performed either on historical measurements or on output from an AOGCM. Using model output from 21st century simulations has the advantage that the climate change signal is more pronounced than in historical data and therefore a more robust statistical relationship is obtained. The disadvantage of using AOGCM output is that the CPSM training might be compromised by any AOGCM inadequacies. For the purposes of exploring the various methodological aspects of the CPSM approach, AOGCM output was used in this study to train the CPSM. These investigations of the CPSM methodology focus on monthly mean fields of daily temperature extremes ( T max and T min ). Key conclusions are: (1) overall, the CPSM trained on simulations based on the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 emissions scenario is able to reproduce AOGCM simulations of T max and T min based on predictor time series from an RCP 4.5 emissions scenario; (2) access to hemisphere average land and ocean temperatures as predictors improves the variance that can be explained, particularly over the oceans; (3) regression model fit-coefficients derived from individual simulations based on the RCP 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 emissions scenarios agree well over most regions of the globe (the Arctic is the exception); (4) training the CPSM on concatenated time series from an ensemble of simulations does not result in fit-coefficients that explain significantly more of the variance than an approach that weights results based on single simulation fits; and (5) the inclusion of a linear time dependence in the regression model fit-coefficients improves the variance explained, primarily over the oceans.

Description: Modeling different freeze/thaw processes in heterogeneous landscapes of the Arctic polygonal tundra using an ecosystem model Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 4883-4932, 2013 Author(s): given_name prefix surname suffix, S. Yi, K. Wischnewski, M. Langer, S. Muster, and J. Boike Freeze/thaw (F/T) processes can be quite different under the various land surface types found in the heterogeneous polygonal tundra of the Arctic. Proper simulation of these different processes is essential for accurate prediction of the release of greenhouse gases under a warming climate scenario. In this study we have modified the dynamic organic soil version of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (DOS-TEM) to simulate F/T processes beneath the polygon rims, polygon centers (with and without water), and lakes that are common features in Arctic lowland regions. We first verified the F/T algorithm in the DOS-TEM against analytical solutions, and then compared the results with in situ measurements from Samoylov Island, Siberia. In the final stage, we examined the different responses of the F/T processes for different water levels at the various land surface types. The simulations revealed that (1) the DOS-TEM was very efficient and its results compared very well with analytical solutions for idealized cases, (2) the simulations compared reasonably well with in situ measurements although there were a number of model limitations and uncertainties, (3) the DOS-TEM was able to successfully simulate the differences in F/T dynamics under different land surface types, and (4) permafrost beneath water bodies was found to respond highly sensitive to changes in water depths between 1 and 2 m. Our results indicate that water is very important in the thermal processes simulated by the DOS-TEM; the heterogeneous nature of the landscape and different water depths therefore need to be taken into account when simulating methane emission responses to a warming climate.

Description: Review Article: Potential geomorphic consequences of a future great ( M w = 8.0+) Alpine Fault earthquake, South Island, New Zealand Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2279-2299, 2013 Author(s): T. R. Robinson and T. R. H. Davies The Alpine Fault in New Zealand's South Island has not sustained a large magnitude earthquake since ca. AD 1717. The time since this rupture is close to the average inferred recurrence interval of the fault (~300 yr). The Alpine Fault is therefore expected to generate a large magnitude earthquake in the near future. Previous ruptures of this fault are inferred to have generated M w = 8.0 or greater earthquakes and to have resulted in, amongst other geomorphic hazards, large-scale landslides and landslide dams throughout the Southern Alps. There is currently 85% probability that the Alpine Fault will cause a M w = 8.0+ earthquake within the next 100 yr. While the seismic hazard is fairly well understood, that of the consequential geomorphic activity is less well studied, and these consequences are explored herein. They are expected to include landsliding, landslide damming, dam-break flooding, debris flows, river aggradation, liquefaction, and landslide-generated lake/fiord tsunami. Using evidence from previous events within New Zealand as well as analogous international examples, we develop first-order estimates of the likely magnitude and possible locations of the geomorphic effects associated with earthquakes. Landsliding is expected to affect an area 〉 30 000 km 2 and involve 〉 1billion m 3 of material. Some tens of landslide dams are expected to occur in narrow, steep-sided gorges in the affected region. Debris flows will be generated in the first long-duration rainfall after the earthquake and will continue to occur for several years as rainfall (re)mobilises landslide material. In total more than 1000 debris flows are likely to be generated at some time after the earthquake. Aggradation of up to 3 m will cover an area 〉 125 km 2 and is likely to occur on many West Coast alluvial fans and floodplains. The impact of these effects will be felt across the entire South Island and is likely to continue for several decades.

Description: A standard test case suite for two-dimensional linear transport on the sphere: results from a collection of state-of-the-art schemes Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 4983-5076, 2013 Author(s): P. H. Lauritzen, P. A. Ullrich, C. Jablonowski, P. A. Bosler, D. Calhoun, A. J. Conley, T. Enomoto, L. Dong, S. Dubey, O. Guba, A. B. Hansen, E. Kaas, J. Kent, J.-F. Lamarque, M. J. Prather, D. Reinert, V. V. Shashkin, W. C. Skamarock, B. Sørensen, M. A. Taylor, and M. A. Tolstykh Recently, a standard test case suite for 2-D linear transport on the sphere was proposed to assess important aspects of accuracy in geophysical fluid dynamics with a "minimal" set of idealized model configurations/runs/diagnostics. Here we present results from 19 state-of-the-art transport scheme formulations based on finite-difference/finite-volume methods as well as emerging (in the context of atmospheric/oceanographic sciences) Galerkin methods. Discretization grids range from traditional regular latitude-longitude grids to more isotropic domain discretizations such as icosahedral and cubed-sphere tessellations of the sphere. The schemes are evaluated using a wide range of diagnostics in idealized flow environments. Accuracy is assessed in single- and two-tracer configurations using conventional error norms as well as novel diagnostics designed for climate and climate-chemistry applications. In addition, algorithmic considerations that may be important for computational efficiency are reported on. The latter is inevitably computing platform dependent, The ensemble of results from a wide variety of schemes presented here helps shed light on the ability of the test case suite diagnostics and flow settings to discriminate between algorithms and provide insights into accuracy in the context of global atmospheric/ocean modeling. A library of benchmark results is provided to facilitate scheme intercomparison and model development. Simple software and data-sets are made available to facilitate the process of model evaluation and scheme intercomparison.

Description: On the analytic approximation of bulk collision rates of non-spherical hydrometeors Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 5077-5116, 2013 Author(s): A. Seifert, U. Blahak, and R. Buhr Analytic approximations of the binary collision rates of hydrometeors are derived for use in bulk microphysical parameterizations. Special attention is given to non-spherical hydrometeors like raindrops and snowflakes. The terminal fall velocity of these particles cannot be sufficiently well approximated by power law relations which are used in most microphysical parameterizations and therefore an improved formulation is needed. The analytic approximations of the bulk collision rates given in this paper are an alternative to look-up tables and can replace the Wisner approximation which is used in many atmospheric models.

Description: Integrating spatial, temporal, and size probabilities for the annual landslide hazard maps in the Shihmen watershed, Taiwan Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2353-2367, 2013 Author(s): C. Y. Wu and S. C. Chen Landslide spatial, temporal, and size probabilities were used to perform a landslide hazard assessment in this study. Eleven intrinsic geomorphological, and two extrinsic rainfall factors were evaluated as landslide susceptibility related factors as they related to the success rate curves, landslide ratio plots, frequency distributions of landslide and non-landslide groups, as well as probability–probability plots. Data on landslides caused by Typhoon Aere in the Shihmen watershed were selected to train the susceptibility model. The landslide area probability, based on the power law relationship between the landslide area and a noncumulative number, was analyzed using the Pearson type 5 probability density function. The exceedance probabilities of rainfall with various recurrence intervals, including 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 and 200 yr, were used to determine the temporal probabilities of the events. The study was conducted in the Shihmen watershed, which has an area of 760 km 2 and is one of the main water sources for northern Taiwan. The validation result of Typhoon Krosa demonstrated that this landslide hazard model could be used to predict the landslide probabilities. The results suggested that integration of spatial, area, and exceedance probabilities to estimate the annual probability of each slope unit is feasible. The advantage of this annual landslide probability model lies in its ability to estimate the annual landslide risk, instead of a scenario-based risk.

Description: On the puzzling feature of the silence of precursory electromagnetic emissions Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2381-2397, 2013 Author(s): K. Eftaxias, S. M. Potirakis, and T. Chelidze It has been suggested that fracture-induced MHz–kHz electromagnetic emissions (EME), which emerge from a few days up to a few hours before the main seismic shock occurrence permit a real-time monitoring of the damage process during the last stages of earthquake preparation, as it happens at the laboratory scale. Despite fairly abundant evidence, electromagnetic (EM) precursors have not been adequately accepted as credible physical phenomena. These negative views are enhanced by the fact that certain "puzzling features" are repetitively observed in candidate fracture-induced pre-seismic EME. More precisely, EM silence in all frequency bands appears before the main seismic shock occurrence, as well as during the aftershock period. Actually, the view that "acceptance of "precursive" EM signals without convincing co-seismic signals should not be expected" seems to be reasonable. In this work we focus on this point. We examine whether the aforementioned features of EM silence are really puzzling ones or, instead, reflect well-documented characteristic features of the fracture process, in terms of universal structural patterns of the fracture process, recent laboratory experiments, numerical and theoretical studies of fracture dynamics, critical phenomena, percolation theory, and micromechanics of granular materials. Our analysis shows that these features should not be considered puzzling.

Description: Global and regional sea surface temperature trends during Marine Isotope Stage 11 Climate of the Past, 9, 2231-2252, 2013 Author(s): Y. Milker, R. Rachmayani, M. F. G. Weinkauf, M. Prange, M. Raitzsch, M. Schulz, and M. Kučera The Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11 (424–374 ka) was characterized by a protracted deglaciation and an unusually long climatic optimum. It remains unclear to what degree the climate development during this interglacial reflects the unusually weak orbital forcing or greenhouse gas trends. Previously, arguments about the duration and timing of the MIS11 climatic optimum and about the pace of the deglacial warming were based on a small number of key records, which appear to show regional differences. In order to obtain a global signal of climate evolution during MIS11, we compiled a database of 78 sea surface temperature (SST) records from 57 sites spanning MIS11, aligned these individually on the basis of benthic ( N = 28) or planktonic ( N = 31) stable oxygen isotope curves to a common time frame and subjected 48 of them to an empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis. The analysis revealed a high commonality among all records, with the principal SST trend explaining almost 49% of the variability. This trend indicates that on the global scale, the surface ocean underwent rapid deglacial warming during Termination V, in pace with carbon dioxide rise, followed by a broad SST optimum centered at ~410 kyr. The second EOF, which explained ~18% of the variability, revealed the existence of a different SST trend, characterized by a delayed onset of the temperature optimum during MIS11 at ~398 kyr, followed by a prolonged warm period lasting beyond 380 kyr. This trend is most consistently manifested in the mid-latitude North Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea and is here attributed to the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. A sensitivity analysis indicates that these results are robust to record selection and to age-model uncertainties of up to 3–6 kyr, but more sensitive to SST seasonal attribution and SST uncertainties 〉1 °C. In order to validate the CCSM3 (Community Climate System Model, version 3) predictive potential, the annual and seasonal SST anomalies recorded in a total of 74 proxy records were compared with runs for three time slices representing orbital configuration extremes during the peak interglacial of MIS11. The modeled SST anomalies are characterized by a significantly lower variance compared to the reconstructions. Nevertheless, significant correlations between proxy and model data are found in comparisons on the seasonal basis, indicating that the model captures part of the long-term variability induced by astronomical forcing, which appears to have left a detectable signature in SST trends.

Description: Ensemble initialization of the oceanic component of a coupled model through bred vectors at seasonal-to-interannual time scales Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 5189-5214, 2013 Author(s): J. Baehr and R. Piontek We evaluate the ensemble spread at seasonal-to-interannual time scales for two perturbation techniques implemented into the ocean component of a coupled model: (1) lagged initial conditions as commonly used for decadal predictions, (2) bred vectors as commonly used for weather and seasonal forecasting. We show that relative to an uninitialized reference simulation the implementation for bred vectors can improve the ensemble spread compared to lagged initialization at time scales from one months up to three years. As bred vectors have so far mostly been used at short time scales, we initially focus on the implementation of the bred vectors into the ocean component. We introduce a depth-dependent vertical rescaling norm, accounting for the vertical dependence of the variability, and extending the commonly used upper-ocean rescaling norm to the full water column. We further show that it is sufficient for the (sub-surface) ocean to breed temperature and salinity (i.e., scalar quantities), and rely on the governing physics to carry the temperature and salinity perturbations to the flow field. Using these bred vectors with a rescaling interval of 12 months, we initialize hindcast simulations and compare them to hindcast simulations initialized with lagged initial conditions. We quantify the ensemble spread by analyzing Talagrand diagrams and spread-error ratios. For both temperature and salinity, the lagged initialized ensemble is particularly under-dispersive for the first few months of predictable lead time. The ensemble initialized with bred vectors improves the spread for temperature and salinity for the 0–700 m and 1000–3500 m means, compared to the lagged ensemble at lead times of several months to one year. As the lead time increases to years, the differences between the two ensemble initialization techniques becomes more difficult to discern. While the results need to be confirmed in an initialized framework, the present analysis represents a first step towards an improved ensemble generation at the transition from seasonal-to-interannual time scales, in particular at lead times up to one year.

Description: Understanding the performance of the FLake model over the African Great Lakes Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 5141-5187, 2013 Author(s): W. Thiery, A. Martynov, F. Darchambeau, J.-P. Descy, P.-D. Plisnier, L. Sushama, and N. P. M. van Lipzig The ability of the one-dimensional lake model FLake to represent the mixolimnion temperatures for tropical conditions was tested for three locations in East Africa: Lake Kivu, Lake Tanganyika's northern and southern basins. Meteorological observations from surrounding Automatic Weather Stations were corrected and used to drive FLake, whereas a comprehensive set of water temperature profiles served to evaluate the model at each site. Careful forcing data correction and model configuration allowed to reproduce the observed mixed layer seasonality at Lake Kivu and Lake Tanganyika (northern and southern basins), with correct representation of both the mixed layer depth and temperature structure. At Lake Kivu, mixolimnion temperatures predicted by FLake were found sensitive both to minimal variations in the external parameters (lake depth and water transparency) as to small changes in the meteorological driving data, in particular wind velocity. In each case, small modifications may already lead to a regime switch from the correctly represented seasonal mixed layer deepening to either completely mixed (down to the model lake bottom) or permanently stratified (from ~10 m downwards) conditions. In contrast, model temperatures are found robust close to the surface, with acceptable predictions of near-surface water temperatures even when the seasonal mixing regime is not reproduced. FLake can thus be a suitable tool to parameterize tropical lake water surface temperatures within atmospheric prediction models, but may be less appropriate, in its current form, to study complex limnological processes within tropical lakes. Furthermore, a study of different initial conditions showed that for tropical lakes lacking reliable initial data, a fully mixed, artificially warm initialisation is to be preferred, but only if the model is allowed to spin up until convergence is reached. Finally, FLake was used to attribute the seasonal mixing cycle at Lake Kivu to variations in the near-surface meteorological conditions. It was found that the annual mixing down to 60 m during the main dry season is primarily due to enhanced lake evaporation and secondarily due to the decreased incoming long wave radiation, both causing a significant heat loss from the lake surface and associated mixolimnion cooling.

Description: Early warning of snow-caused disasters in pastoral areas on the Tibetan Plateau Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 1411-1425, 2013 Author(s): W. Wang, T. Liang, X. Huang, Q. Feng, H. Xie, X. Liu, M. Chen, and X. Wang This study develops a model for early warning of snow-caused livestock disasters on a county basis and proposes a method of qualitative risk assessment of snow disasters at 500 m resolution for pastoral areas on the Tibetan Plateau (TP). Data used for the model development include remote sensing data, statistical data of weather, livestock, and social economy, and 45 typical snow disaster cases from 2000 to 2010. The principal component analysis (PCA) approach is used to choose 7 crucial factors that contribute over 85% of information for early warning snow disasters on the TP. They are mean annual probability of snow disaster, number of snow-covered days, livestock stocking rate, continual days of mean daily temperature below −10 °C, grassland burial index, rate of snow-covered grassland, and per livestock gross domestic product. The chosen 411 cases from 2008 to 2010 are used to validate the prediction results from the developed early warning model, with an overall accuracy of 85.64% in predicting snow disasters and no disasters. This suggests that the early warning approach developed in the study has operational potential for predicting snow disasters on the TP.

Description: How much does participatory flood management contribute to stakeholders' social capacity building? Empirical findings based on a triangulation of three evaluation approaches Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 1427-1444, 2013 Author(s): M. Buchecker, S. Menzel, and R. Home Recent literature suggests that dialogic forms of risk communication are more effective to build stakeholders' hazard-related social capacities. In spite of the high theoretical expectations, there is a lack of univocal empirical evidence on the relevance of these effects. This is mainly due to the methodological limitations of the existing evaluation approaches. In our paper we aim at eliciting the contribution of participatory river revitalisation projects on stakeholders' social capacity building by triangulating the findings of three evaluation studies that were based on different approaches: a field-experimental, a qualitative long-term ex-post and a cross-sectional household survey approach. The results revealed that social learning and avoiding the loss of trust were more relevant benefits of participatory flood management than acceptance building. The results suggest that stakeholder involvements should be more explicitly designed as tools for long-term social learning.

Description: Stakeholders' issues for action during the warning process and the interpretation of forecasts' uncertainties Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 1469-1479, 2013 Author(s): L. Créton-Cazanave and C. Lutoff This article considers the socio-geographical approach carried out as part of the MedUp program. It presents a study of the ways that the French "actors" manage forecast uncertainties during a flash flood warning process. In order to better understand the role of forecasts' uncertainties in decision making, we focused on the actions people took and how what they say explains their actions. The practices of actors involved in warnings for the Vidourle watershed (Gard, France), in particular, are analyzed using a practice-based approach. A set of categories of the "actors" was developed based on their descriptions of the problems they faced during the flash flood warning, independent of their socio-professional status and position in the warning chain. Five actor profiles result from this: Translators, Managers, Committed, Navigators and Vulnerable. For each profile, specific action contexts are defined, determining how each deals with uncertainty.

Description: Augmenting Austrian flood management practices through geospatial predictive analytics: a study in Carinthia Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 1445-1455, 2013 Author(s): S. M. Ward and G. Paulus The Danube River basin has long been the location of significant flooding problems across central Europe. The last decade has seen a sharp increase in the frequency, duration and intensity of these flood events, unveiling a dire need for enhanced flood management policy and tools in the region. Located in the southern portion of Austria, the state of Carinthia has experienced a significant volume of intense flood impacts over the last decade. Although the Austrian government has acknowledged these issues, their remedial actions have been primarily structural to date. Continued focus on controlling the natural environment through infrastructure while disregarding the need to consider alternative forms of assessing flood exposure will only act as a provisional solution to this inescapable risk. In an attempt to remedy this flaw, this paper highlights the application of geospatial predictive analytics and spatial recovery index as a proxy for community resilience, as well as the cultural challenges associated with the application of foreign models within an Austrian environment.

Description: Skill and reliability of climate model ensembles at the Last Glacial Maximum and mid-Holocene Climate of the Past, 9, 811-823, 2013 Author(s): J. C. Hargreaves, J. D. Annan, R. Ohgaito, A. Paul, and A. Abe-Ouchi Paleoclimate simulations provide us with an opportunity to critically confront and evaluate the performance of climate models in simulating the response of the climate system to changes in radiative forcing and other boundary conditions. Hargreaves et al. (2011) analysed the reliability of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project, PMIP2 model ensemble with respect to the MARGO sea surface temperature data synthesis (MARGO Project Members, 2009) for the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 21 ka BP). Here we extend that work to include a new comprehensive collection of land surface data (Bartlein et al., 2011), and introduce a novel analysis of the predictive skill of the models. We include output from the PMIP3 experiments, from the two models for which suitable data are currently available. We also perform the same analyses for the PMIP2 mid-Holocene (6 ka BP) ensembles and available proxy data sets. Our results are predominantly positive for the LGM, suggesting that as well as the global mean change, the models can reproduce the observed pattern of change on the broadest scales, such as the overall land–sea contrast and polar amplification, although the more detailed sub-continental scale patterns of change remains elusive. In contrast, our results for the mid-Holocene are substantially negative, with the models failing to reproduce the observed changes with any degree of skill. One cause of this problem could be that the globally- and annually-averaged forcing anomaly is very weak at the mid-Holocene, and so the results are dominated by the more localised regional patterns in the parts of globe for which data are available. The root cause of the model-data mismatch at these scales is unclear. If the proxy calibration is itself reliable, then representativity error in the data-model comparison, and missing climate feedbacks in the models are other possible sources of error.

Description: CDRD and PNPR satellite passive microwave precipitation retrieval algorithms: EuroTRMM/EURAINSAT origins and H-SAF operations Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 887-912, 2013 Author(s): A. Mugnai, E. A. Smith, G. J. Tripoli, B. Bizzarri, D. Casella, S. Dietrich, F. Di Paola, G. Panegrossi, and P. Sanò Satellite Application Facility on Support to Operational Hydrology and Water Management (H-SAF) is a EUMETSAT (European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites) program, designed to deliver satellite products of hydrological interest (precipitation, soil moisture and snow parameters) over the European and Mediterranean region to research and operations users worldwide. Six satellite precipitation algorithms and concomitant precipitation products are the responsibility of various agencies in Italy. Two of these algorithms have been designed for maximum accuracy by restricting their inputs to measurements from conical and cross-track scanning passive microwave (PMW) radiometers mounted on various low Earth orbiting satellites. They have been developed at the Italian National Research Council/Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate in Rome (CNR/ISAC-Rome), and are providing operational retrievals of surface rain rate and its phase properties. Each of these algorithms is physically based, however, the first of these, referred to as the Cloud Dynamics and Radiation Database (CDRD) algorithm, uses a Bayesian-based solution solver, while the second, referred to as the PMW Neural-net Precipitation Retrieval (PNPR) algorithm, uses a neural network-based solution solver. Herein we first provide an overview of the two initial EU research and applications programs that motivated their initial development, EuroTRMM and EURAINSAT (European Satellite Rainfall Analysis and Monitoring at the Geostationary Scale), and the current H-SAF program that provides the framework for their operational use and continued development. We stress the relevance of the CDRD and PNPR algorithms and their precipitation products in helping secure the goals of H-SAF's scientific and operations agenda, the former helpful as a secondary calibration reference to other algorithms in H-SAF's complete mix of algorithms. Descriptions of the algorithms' designs are provided including a few examples of their performance. This aspect of the development of the two algorithms is placed in the context of what we refer to as the TRMM era, which is the era denoting the active and ongoing period of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) that helped inspire their original development. In 2015, the ISAC-Rome precipitation algorithms will undergo a transformation beginning with the upcoming Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, particularly the GPM Core Satellite technologies. A few years afterward, the first pair of imaging and sounding Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satellites will be launched, providing additional technological advances. Various of the opportunities presented by the GPM Core and MTG satellites for improving the current CDRD and PNPR precipitation retrieval algorithms, as well as extending their product capability, are discussed.

Description: Stable isotopic evidence of El Niño-like atmospheric circulation in the Pliocene western United States Climate of the Past, 9, 903-912, 2013 Author(s): M. J. Winnick, J. M. Welker, and C. P. Chamberlain Understanding how the hydrologic cycle has responded to warmer global temperatures in the past is especially important today as concentrations of CO 2 in the atmosphere continue to increase due to human activities. The Pliocene offers an ideal window into a climate system that has equilibrated with current atmospheric p CO 2 . During the Pliocene the western United States was wetter than modern, an observation at odds with our current understanding of future warming scenarios, which involve the expansion and poleward migration of the subtropical dry zone. Here we compare Pliocene oxygen isotope profiles of pedogenic carbonates across the western US to modern isotopic anomalies in precipitation between phases of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). We find that when accounting for seasonality of carbonate formation, isotopic changes through the late Pliocene match modern precipitation isotopic anomalies in El Niño years. Furthermore, isotopic shifts through the late Pliocene mirror changes through the early Pleistocene, which likely represents the southward migration of the westerly storm track caused by growth of the Laurentide ice sheet. We propose that the westerly storm track migrated northward through the late Pliocene with the development of the modern cold tongue in the east equatorial Pacific, then returned southward with widespread glaciation in the Northern Hemisphere – a scenario supported by terrestrial climate proxies across the US. Together these data support the proposed existence of background El Niño-like conditions in western North America during the warm Pliocene. If the earth behaves similarly with future warming, this observation has important implications with regard to the amount and distribution of precipitation in western North America.

Description: Mass-movement and flood-induced deposits in Lake Ledro, southern Alps, Italy: implications for Holocene palaeohydrology and natural hazards Climate of the Past, 9, 825-840, 2013 Author(s): A. Simonneau, E. Chapron, B. Vannière, S. B. Wirth, A. Gilli, C. Di Giovanni, F. S. Anselmetti, M. Desmet, and M. Magny High-resolution seismic profiles and sediment cores from Lake Ledro combined with soil and riverbed samples from the lake's catchment area are used to assess the recurrence of natural hazards (earthquakes and flood events) in the southern Italian Alps during the Holocene. Two well-developed deltas and a flat central basin are identified on seismic profiles in Lake Ledro. Lake sediments have been finely laminated in the basin since 9000 cal. yr BP and frequently interrupted by two types of sedimentary events (SEs): light-coloured massive layers and dark-coloured graded beds. Optical analysis (quantitative organic petrography) of the organic matter present in soil, riverbed and lacustrine samples together with lake sediment bulk density and grain-size analysis illustrate that light-coloured layers consist of a mixture of lacustrine sediments and mainly contain algal particles similar to the ones observed in background sediments. Light-coloured layers thicker than 1.5 cm in the main basin of Lake Ledro are synchronous to numerous coeval mass-wasting deposits remoulding the slopes of the basin. They are interpreted as subaquatic mass-movements triggered by historical and pre-historical regional earthquakes dated to AD 2005, AD 1891, AD 1045 and 1260, 2545, 2595, 3350, 3815, 4740, 7190, 9185 and 11 495 cal. yr BP. Dark-coloured SEs develop high-amplitude reflections in front of the deltas and in the deep central basin. These beds are mainly made of terrestrial organic matter (soils and lignocellulosic debris) and are interpreted as resulting from intense hyperpycnal flood event. Mapping and quantifying the amount of soil material accumulated in the Holocene hyperpycnal flood deposits of the sequence allow estimating that the equivalent soil thickness eroded over the catchment area reached up to 5 mm during the largest Holocene flood events. Such significant soil erosion is interpreted as resulting from the combination of heavy rainfall and snowmelt. The recurrence of flash flood events during the Holocene was, however, not high enough to affect pedogenesis processes and highlight several wet regional periods during the Holocene. The Holocene period is divided into four phases of environmental evolution. Over the first half of the Holocene, a progressive stabilization of the soils present through the catchment of Lake Ledro was associated with a progressive reforestation of the area and only interrupted during the wet 8.2 event when the soil destabilization was particularly important. Lower soil erosion was recorded during the mid-Holocene climatic optimum (8000–4200 cal. yr BP) and associated with higher algal production. Between 4200 and 3100 cal. yr BP, both wetter climate and human activities within the drainage basin drastically increased soil erosion rates. Finally, from 3100 cal. yr BP to the present-day, data suggest increasing and changing human land use.

Description: Using data assimilation to investigate the causes of Southern Hemisphere high latitude cooling from 10 to 8 ka BP Climate of the Past, 9, 887-901, 2013 Author(s): P. Mathiot, H. Goosse, X. Crosta, B. Stenni, M. Braida, H. Renssen, C. J. Van Meerbeeck, V. Masson-Delmotte, A. Mairesse, and S. Dubinkina From 10 to 8 ka BP (thousand years before present), paleoclimate records show an atmospheric and oceanic cooling in the high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. During this interval, temperatures estimated from proxy data decrease by 0.8 °C over Antarctica and 1.2 °C over the Southern Ocean. In order to study the causes of this cooling, simulations covering the early Holocene have been performed with the climate model of intermediate complexity LOVECLIM constrained to follow the signal recorded in climate proxies using a data assimilation method based on a particle filtering approach. The selected proxies represent oceanic and atmospheric surface temperature in the Southern Hemisphere derived from terrestrial, marine and glaciological records. Two mechanisms previously suggested to explain the 10–8 ka BP cooling pattern are investigated using the data assimilation approach in our model. The first hypothesis is a change in atmospheric circulation, and the second one is a cooling of the sea surface temperature in the Southern Ocean, driven in our experimental setup by the impact of an increased West Antarctic melting rate on ocean circulation. For the atmosphere hypothesis, the climate state obtained by data assimilation produces a modification of the meridional atmospheric circulation leading to a 0.5 °C Antarctic cooling from 10 to 8 ka BP compared to the simulation without data assimilation, without congruent cooling of the atmospheric and sea surface temperature in the Southern Ocean. For the ocean hypothesis, the increased West Antarctic freshwater flux constrainted by data assimilation (+100 mSv from 10 to 8 ka BP) leads to an oceanic cooling of 0.7 °C and a strengthening of Southern Hemisphere westerlies (+6%). Thus, according to our experiments, the observed cooling in Antarctic and the Southern Ocean proxy records can only be reconciled with the reconstructions by the combination of a modified atmospheric circulation and an enhanced freshwater flux.

Description: The mid-Pliocene climate simulated by FGOALS-g2 Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 2403-2428, 2013 Author(s): W. Zheng, Z. Zhang, L. Chen, and Y. Yu Within the framework of Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project (PlioMIP), the mid-Pliocene (3.264–3.025 Ma) climate simulated by the Flexible Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System model grid-point version 2 (FGOALS-g2) are analyzed in this study. Results show that the model reproduces the large-scale features of the global warming over the land and ocean. The simulated mid-Pliocene global annual mean surface air temperature (TAS) and sea surface temperature (SST) are 4.17 and 2.62°C warmer than the pre-Industrial simulation, respectively. In particular, the feature of larger warming over mid-high latitudes is well captured. In the simulated warm mid-Pliocene climate, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) become weaker.

Description: The potential of an observational data set for calibration of a computationally expensive computer model Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 2369-2401, 2013 Author(s): D. J. McNeall, P. G. Challenor, J. R. Gattiker, and E. J. Stone We measure the potential of an observational data set to constrain a set of inputs to a complex and computationally expensive computer model. We use each member in turn of an ensemble of output from a computationally expensive model, corresponding to some observable part of a modelled system, as a proxy for an observational data set. We argue that our ability to constrain uncertain parameter inputs to a model using its own output as data, provides a maximum bound for our ability to constrain the model inputs using observations of the real system. The ensemble provides a set of known parameter input and model output pairs, which we use to build a computationally efficient statistical proxy for the full computer model, termed an emulator. We use the emulator to find and rule out ''implausible" values for the inputs of held-out ensemble members, given the computer model output. As we know the true values of the inputs for the ensemble, we can compare our constraint of the model inputs with the true value of the input for any ensemble member. Measures of the quality of constraint have the potential to inform strategy for data collection campaigns, before any real-world data is collected, as well as acting as an effective sensitivity analysis. We use an ensemble of the ice sheet model Glimmer to demonstrate our measures of quality of constraint. The ensemble has 250 model runs with 5 uncertain input parameters, and an output variable representing the pattern of the thickness of ice over Greenland. We have an observation of historical ice sheet thickness that directly matches the output variable, and offers an opportunity to constrain the model. We show that different ways of summarising our output variable (ice volume, ice surface area and maximum ice thickness) offer different potential constraints on individual input parameters. We show that combining the observational data gives increased power to constrain the model. We investigate the impact of uncertainty in observations or in model biases on our measures, showing that even a modest uncertainty can seriously degrade the potential of the observational data to constrain the model.

Description: Model sensitivity to North Atlantic freshwater forcing at 8.2 ka Climate of the Past, 9, 955-968, 2013 Author(s): C. Morrill, A. N. LeGrande, H. Renssen, P. Bakker, and B. L. Otto-Bliesner We compared four simulations of the 8.2 ka event to assess climate model sensitivity and skill in responding to North Atlantic freshwater perturbations. All of the simulations used the same freshwater forcing, 2.5 Sv for one year, applied to either the Hudson Bay (northeastern Canada) or Labrador Sea (between Canada's Labrador coast and Greenland). This freshwater pulse induced a decadal-mean slowdown of 10–25% in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) of the models and caused a large-scale pattern of climate anomalies that matched proxy evidence for cooling in the Northern Hemisphere and a southward shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone. The multi-model ensemble generated temperature anomalies that were just half as large as those from quantitative proxy reconstructions, however. Also, the duration of AMOC and climate anomalies in three of the simulations was only several decades, significantly shorter than the duration of ~150 yr in the paleoclimate record. Possible reasons for these discrepancies include incorrect representation of the early Holocene climate and ocean state in the North Atlantic and uncertainties in the freshwater forcing estimates.

Description: On searching for optimized set of physical parameterization schemes in a multi-physics land surface process model Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 4511-4530, 2013 Author(s): S. Hong, X. Yu, S. K. Park, Y.-S. Choi, and B. Myoung Optimization of land surface models has been very challenging due to the increasing complexity of such models. Typical parameter calibration techniques often limit the solution of the spatiotemporal discrepancy in the modeling performance levels especially for regional applications. Thus, in this study, an attempt was made to perform scheme-based model optimization by designing a framework for coupling a micro-genetic algorithm (micro-GA) with the Noah land surface model that has multiple physics options (Noah-MP). Micro-GA controls the scheme selections in 10 different land surface parameterization fields in Noah-MP in order to extract the optimal scheme combination for a certain region. This coupling framework was successfully applied to the optimization of the surface water partitioning in the Korean Peninsula, promising not only the effectiveness of the scheme-based optimization but also model diagnosis capability by exploring the scheme sensitivity during the micro-GA evolution process. Then, the method was applied to four different regions in East Asia that have different climatic characteristics. The results indicate that (1) the optimal scheme combinations vary with the regions, (2) schemes related to the surface water partitioning are important for the modeling accuracy, and (3) specialized post-parameter optimization for each region may be required.

Description: Atmospheric inverse modeling with known physical bounds: an example from trace gas emissions Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 4531-4562, 2013 Author(s): S. M. Miller, A. M. Michalak, and P. J. Levi Many inverse problems in the atmospheric sciences involve parameters with known physical constraints. Examples include non-negativity (e.g., emissions of some urban air pollutants) or upward limits implied by reaction or solubility constants. However, probabilistic inverse modeling approaches based on Gaussian assumptions cannot incorporate such bounds and thus often produce unrealistic results. The atmospheric literature lacks consensus on the best means to overcome this problem, and existing atmospheric studies rely on a limited number of the possible methods with little examination of the relative merits of each. This paper investigates the applicability of several approaches to bounded inverse problems and is also the first application of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to estimation of atmospheric trace gas fluxes. The approaches discussed here are broadly applicable. A common method of data transformations is found to unrealistically skew estimates for the examined example application. The method of Lagrange multipliers and two MCMC methods yield more realistic and accurate results. In general, the examined MCMC approaches produce the most realistic result but can require substantial computational time. Lagrange multipliers offer an appealing alternative for large, computationally intensive problems when exact uncertainty bounds are less central to the analysis. A synthetic data inversion of US anthropogenic methane emissions illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.

Description: A mid-Holocene climate reconstruction for eastern South America Climate of the Past, 9, 2117-2133, 2013 Author(s): L. F. Prado, I. Wainer, C. M. Chiessi, M.-P. Ledru, and B. Turcq The mid-Holocene (6000 calibrated years before present) is a key period in palaeoclimatology because incoming summer insolation was lower than during the late Holocene in the Southern Hemisphere, whereas the opposite happened in the Northern Hemisphere. However, the effects of the decreased austral summer insolation over South American climate have been poorly discussed by palaeodata syntheses. In addition, only a few of the regional studies have characterised the mid-Holocene climate in South America through a multiproxy approach. Here, we present a multiproxy compilation of mid-Holocene palaeoclimate data for eastern South America. We compiled 120 palaeoclimatological datasets, which were published in 84 different papers. The palaeodata analysed here suggest a water deficit scenario in the majority of eastern South America during the mid-Holocene if compared to the late Holocene, with the exception of northeastern Brazil. Low mid-Holocene austral summer insolation caused a reduced land–sea temperature contrast and hence a weakened South American monsoon system circulation. This scenario is represented by a decrease in precipitation over the South Atlantic Convergence Zone area, saltier conditions along the South American continental margin, and lower lake levels.

Description: A database and tool for boundary conditions for regional air quality modeling: description and evaluation Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 4665-4704, 2013 Author(s): B. H. Henderson, F. Akhtar, H. O. T. Pye, S. L. Napelenok, and W. T. Hutzell Transported air pollutants receive increasing attention as regulations tighten and global concentrations increase. The need to represent international transport in regional air quality assessments requires improved representation of boundary concentrations. Currently available observations are too sparse vertically to provide boundary information, particularly for ozone precursors, but global simulations can be used to generate spatially and temporally varying Lateral Boundary Conditions (LBC). This study presents a public database of global simulations designed and evaluated for use as LBC for air quality models (AQMs). The database covers the contiguous United States (CONUS) for the years 2000–2010 and contains hourly varying concentrations of ozone, aerosols, and their precursors. The database is complimented by a tool for configuring the global results as inputs to regional scale models (e.g., Community Multiscale Air Quality or Comprehensive Air quality Model with extensions). This study also presents an example application based on the CONUS domain, which is evaluated against satellite retrieved ozone vertical profiles. The results show performance is largely within uncertainty estimates for the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) with some exceptions. The major difference shows a high bias in the upper troposphere along the southern boundary in January. This publication documents the global simulation database, the tool for conversion to LBC, and the fidelity of concentrations on the boundaries. This documentation is intended to support applications that require representation of long-range transport of air pollutants.

Description: Effects of vegetation structure on biomass accumulation in a Balanced Optimality Structure Vegetation Model (BOSVM v1.0) Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 4603-4663, 2013 Author(s): Z. Yin, S. C. Dekker, B. J. J. M. van den Hurk, and H. A. Dijkstra A myriad of interactions exist between vegetation and local climate for arid and semi-arid regions. Vegetation function, structure and individual behavior have large impacts on carbon-water-energy balances, which consequently influence local climate variability that, in turn, feeds back to the vegetation. In this study, a conceptual vegetation structure scheme is formulated and tested in a new carbon-water-energy coupled model to explore the importance of vegetation structure and vegetation adaptation to water stress on equilibrium biomass states. Surface energy, water and carbon fluxes are simulated for a range of vegetation structures across a precipitation gradient in West Africa and optimal vegetation structures that maximizes biomass for each precipitation regime are determined. Two different strategies of vegetation adaptation to water stress are included. Under dry conditions vegetation tries to maximize the Water Use Efficiency and Leaf Area Index as it tries to maximize carbon gain. However, an important negative feedback mechanism is found as the vegetation also tries to minimize its cover to optimize the surrounding bare ground area from which water can be extracted, thereby forming patches of vertical vegetation. Under larger precipitation, a positive feedback mechanism is found in which vegetation tries to maximize its cover as it then can reduce water loss from bare soil while having maximum carbon gain due to a large Leaf Area Index. The competition between vegetation and bare soil determines a transition between a "survival" state to a "growing" state.

Description: Influence of management of variables, sampling zones and land units on LR analysis for landslide spatial prevision Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2209-2221, 2013 Author(s): R. Greco and M. Sorriso-Valvo Several authors, according to different methodological approaches, have employed logistic Regression (LR), a multivariate statistical analysis adopted to assess the spatial probability of landslide, even though its fundamental principles have remained unaltered. This study aims at assessing the influence of some of these methodological approaches on the performance of LR, through a series of sensitivity analyses developed over a test area of about 300 km 2 in Calabria (southern Italy). In particular, four types of sampling (1 – the whole study area; 2 – transects running parallel to the general slope direction of the study area with a total surface of about 1/3 of the whole study area; 3 – buffers surrounding the phenomena with a 1/1 ratio between the stable and the unstable area; 4 – buffers surrounding the phenomena with a 1/2 ratio between the stable and the unstable area), two variable coding modes (1 – grouped variables; 2 – binary variables), and two types of elementary land (1 – cells units; 2 – slope units) units have been tested. The obtained results must be considered as statistically relevant in all cases (Aroc values 〉 70%), thus confirming the soundness of the LR analysis which maintains high predictive capacities notwithstanding the features of input data. As for the area under investigation, the best performing methodological choices are the following: (i) transects produced the best results (0 〈 P(y) ≤ 93.4%; Aroc = 79.5%); (ii) as for sampling modalities, binary variables (0 〈 P(y) ≤ 98.3%; Aroc = 80.7%) provide better performance than ordinated variables; (iii) as for the choice of elementary land units, slope units (0 〈 P(y) ≤ 100%; Aroc = 84.2%) have obtained better results than cells matrix.

Description: Risk evolution: how can changes in the built environment influence the potential loss of natural hazards? Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2195-2207, 2013 Author(s): B. Schwendtner, M. Papathoma-Köhle, and T. Glade Alpine areas often suffer significant loss and damage due to a range of natural processes such as landslides, debris flows, snow avalanches or floods. Sealing of the soil surface, settling in endangered areas and enhanced human intervention in the natural settings, as well as socio-economic changes, increase the risk and susceptibility of built environments to natural hazards and the costs of the consequences in a spatio-temporal context. The present study examines the loss estimation of a particular debris flow event for different points in time. The event occurred in August 1987, affected the municipality Martell in South Tyrol, Italy, and resulted in a total cost of € 25 million. The approach presented in this paper focuses on the changes of the land use and settlement expansion in the area since 1954 and attempts to assess the monetary impact of a similar event, which could have happened before (1954, 1985) or following the actual event (1992, 1999, 2006). The method applied is based on the use of a vulnerability curve which was developed for the specific area, based on the documentation of the damage of the 1987 event. Based on this curve, a loss estimation was carried out in order to visualise the risk evolution in a period of 52 yr (1954 to 2006). The results show a significant increase in the extent of the built environment (number, size and value of buildings) which consequently reflect an increase of the potential overall loss through the years. The method can be used in order to assess the potential loss for future scenarios based on different spatial patterns of the built environment.

Description: Wind shear over the Nice Côte d'Azur airport: case studies Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2223-2238, 2013 Author(s): A. Boilley and J.-F. Mahfouf The Nice Côte d'Azur international airport is subject to horizontal low-level wind shears. Detecting and predicting these hazards is a major concern for aircraft security. A measurement campaign took place over the Nice airport in 2009 including 4 anemometers, 1 wind lidar and 1 wind profiler. Two wind shear events were observed during this measurement campaign. Numerical simulations were carried out with Meso-NH in a configuration compatible with near-real time applications to determine the ability of the numerical model to predict these events and to study the meteorological situations generating an horizontal wind shear. A comparison between numerical simulation and the observation dataset is conducted in this paper.

Description: Glacial fluctuations of the Indian monsoon and their relationship with North Atlantic climate: new data and modelling experiments Climate of the Past, 9, 2135-2151, 2013 Author(s): C. Marzin, N. Kallel, M. Kageyama, J.-C. Duplessy, and P. Braconnot Several paleoclimate records such as from Chinese loess, speleothems or upwelling indicators in marine sediments present large variations of the Asian monsoon system during the last glaciation. Here, we present a new record from the northern Andaman Sea (core MD77-176) which shows the variations of the hydrological cycle of the Bay of Bengal. The high-resolution record of surface water δ 18 O dominantly reflects salinity changes and displays large millennial-scale oscillations over the period 40 000 to 11 000 yr BP. Their timing and sequence suggests that events of high (resp. low) salinity in the Bay of Bengal, i.e. weak (resp. strong) Indian monsoon, correspond to cold (resp. warm) events in the North Atlantic and Arctic, as documented by the Greenland ice core record. We use the IPSL_CM4 Atmosphere-Ocean coupled General Circulation Model to study the processes that could explain the teleconnection between the Indian monsoon and the North Atlantic climate. We first analyse a numerical experiment in which such a rapid event in the North Atlantic is obtained under glacial conditions by increasing the freshwater flux in the North Atlantic, which results in a reduction of the intensity of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. This freshwater hosing results in a weakening of the Indian monsoon rainfall and circulation. The changes in the continental runoff and local hydrological cycle are responsible for an increase in salinity in the Bay of Bengal. This therefore compares favourably with the new sea water δ 18 O record presented here and the hypothesis of synchronous cold North Atlantic and weak Indian monsoon events. Additional sensitivity experiments are produced with the LMDZ atmospheric model to analyse the teleconnection mechanisms between the North Atlantic and the Indian monsoon. The changes over the tropical Atlantic are shown to be essential in triggering perturbations of the subtropical jet over Africa and Eurasia, that in turn affect the intensity of the Indian monsoon. These relationships are also found to be valid in additional coupled model simulations in which the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is forced to resume.

Description: A distributed computing approach to improve the performance of the Parallel Ocean Program (v2.1) Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 4705-4744, 2013 Author(s): B. van Werkhoven, J. Maassen, M. Kliphuis, H. A. Dijkstra, S. E. Brunnabend, M. van Meersbergen, F. J. Seinstra, and H. E. Bal The Parallel Ocean Program (POP) is used in many strongly eddying ocean circulation simulations. Ideally one would like to do thousand-year long simulations, but the current performance of POP prohibits this type of simulations. In this work, using a new distributed computing approach, two innovations to improve the performance of POP are presented. The first is a new block partitioning scheme for the optimization of the load balancing of POP such that it can be run efficiently in a multi-platform setting. The second is an implementation of part of the POP model code on Graphics Processing Units. We show that the combination of both innovations leads to a substantial performance increase also when running POP simultaneously over multiple computational platforms.

Description: Explosive development of winter storm Xynthia over the subtropical North Atlantic Ocean Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2239-2251, 2013 Author(s): M. L. R. Liberato, J. G. Pinto, R. M. Trigo, P. Ludwig, P. Ordóñez, D. Yuen, and I. F. Trigo In winter of 2009–2010 south-western Europe was hit by several destructive windstorms. The most important was Xynthia (26–28 February 2010), which caused 64 reported casualties and was classified as the 2nd most expensive natural hazard event for 2010 in terms of economic losses. In this work we assess the synoptic evolution, dynamical characteristics and the main impacts of storm Xynthia, whose genesis, development and path were very uncommon. Wind speed gusts observed at more than 500 stations across Europe are evaluated as well as the wind gust field obtained with a regional climate model simulation for the entire North Atlantic and European area. Storm Xynthia was first identified on 25 February around 30° N, 50° W over the subtropical North Atlantic Ocean. Its genesis occurred on a region characterized by warm and moist air under the influence of a strong upper level wave embedded in the westerlies. Xynthia followed an unusual SW–NE path towards Iberia, France and central Europe. The role of moist air masses on the explosive development of Xynthia is analysed by considering the evaporative sources. A lagrangian model is used to identify the moisture sources, sinks and moisture transport associated with the cyclone during its development phase. The main supply of moisture is located over an elongated region of the subtropical North Atlantic Ocean with anomalously high SST, confirming that the explosive development of storm Xynthia had a significant contribution from the subtropics.

Description: Mid-Holocene ocean and vegetation feedbacks over East Asia Climate of the Past, 9, 2153-2171, 2013 Author(s): Z. Tian and D. Jiang Mid-Holocene ocean and vegetation feedbacks over East Asia are investigated by a set of numerical experiments performed with the version 4 of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM4). With reference to the pre-industrial period, most of the mid-Holocene annual and seasonal surface-air temperature and precipitation changes are found to result from a direct response of the atmosphere to insolation forcing, while dynamic ocean and vegetation modulate regional climate of East Asia to some extent. Because of its thermal inertia, the dynamic ocean induced an additional warming of 0.2 K for the annual mean, 0.5 K in winter (December–February), 0.0003 K in summer (June–August), and 1.0 K in autumn (September–November), but a cooling of 0.6 K in spring (March–May) averaged over China, and it counteracted (amplified) the direct effect of insolation forcing for the annual mean and in winter and autumn (spring) for that period. The dynamic vegetation had an area-average impact of no more than 0.4 K on the mid-Holocene annual and seasonal temperatures over China, with an average cooling of 0.2 K for the annual mean. On the other hand, ocean feedback induced a small increase of precipitation in winter (0.04 mm day −1 ) and autumn (0.05 mm day −1 ), but a reduction for the annual mean (0.14 mm day −1 ) and in spring (0.29 mm day −1 ) and summer (0.34 mm day −1 ) over China, while it also suppressed the East Asian summer monsoon rainfall. The effect of dynamic vegetation on the mid-Holocene annual and seasonal precipitation was comparatively small, ranging from −0.03 mm day −1 to 0.06 mm day −1 averaged over China. In comparison, the CCSM4 simulated annual and winter cooling over China agrees with simulations within the Paleoclimate Modeling Intercomparison Project (PMIP), but the results are contrary to the warming reconstructed from multiple proxy data for the mid-Holocene. Ocean feedback narrows this model–data mismatch, whereas vegetation feedback plays an opposite role but with a level of uncertainty.

Description: Inherently mass-conservative version of the semi-Lagrangian Absolute Vorticity (SL-AV) atmospheric model dynamical core Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 4809-4832, 2013 Author(s): V. V. Shashkin and M. A. Tolstykh The semi-Lagrangian Absolute Vorticity (SL-AV) atmospheric model is the global semi-Lagrangian hydrostatic model used for operational medium-range and seasonal forecasts at Hydrometeorological centre of Russia. The distinct feature of SL-AV dynamical core is the semi-implicit semi-Lagrangian vorticity-divergence formulation on the unstaggered grid. Semi-implicit semi-Lagrangian approach allows for long time steps while violates the global and local mass-conservation. In particular, the total mass in simulations with semi-Lagrangian models can drift significantly if no aposteriori mass-fixing algorithms are applied. However, the global mass-fixing algorithms degrade the local mass conservation. The inherently mass-conservative version of SL-AV model dynamical core presented in the article ensures global and local mass conservation without mass-fixing algorithms. The mass conservation is achieved with the introduction of the finite-volume semi-Lagrangian discretization for continuity equation based on the 3-D extension of the conservative cascade semi-Lagrangian transport scheme (CCS). The numerical experiments show that the presented new version of SL-AV dynamical core combines the accuracy and stability of the standard SL-AV dynamical core with the mass-conservation properties. The results of the mountain induced Rossby wave test and baroclinic instability test for mass-conservative dynamical core are found to be in agreement with the results available in literature.

Description: A fast input/output library for high resolution climate models Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 4775-4807, 2013 Author(s): X. Huang, W. Wang, H. Fu, G. Yang, B. Wang, and C. Zhang We describe the design and implementation of Climate Fast Input/Output (CFIO), a fast input/output (I/O) library for high resolution climate models. CFIO provides a simple method for modelers to overlap the I/O phase with the computing phase automatically, so as to shorten the running time of numerical simulations. To minimize the code modifications required for porting, CFIO provides similar interfaces and features to Parallel network Common Data Form (PnetCDF), which is one of the most widely used I/O libraries in climate models. We deployed CFIO in three high resolution climate models, including two ocean models (POP and LICOM) and one sea ice model (CICE). The experimental results show that CFIO improves the performance of climate models significantly versus the original serial I/O approach. When running with CFIO at 0.1° resolution with about 1000 CPU cores, we managed to reduce the running time by factors of 7.9, 4.6 and 2.0 for POP, CICE, and LICOM respectively. We also compared the performance of CFIO against PnetCDF in different scenarios. For scenarios with both data output operations and computations, CFIO decreases the I/O overhead by a factor of 5.1 compared to PnetCDF.

Description: Seismic behavior of buried pipelines constructed by design criteria and construction specifications of both Korea and the US Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2271-2278, 2013 Author(s): S.-S. Jeon Earthquake loss estimation systems in the US, for example HAZUS (Hazard in US), have been established based on sufficient damage records for the purpose of prevention and efficient response to earthquake hazards; however, in Korea, insufficient data sets of earthquakes and damage records are currently available. In this study, the earthquake damages to pipelines in Korea using the pipeline repair rate (RR) recommended in HAZUS was reevaluated with the degree of confidence when RR is used without modification for the damage estimation of pipelines in Korea. The numerical analyses using a commercial finite element model, ABAQUS, were carried out to compare stresses and strains mobilized in both brittle and ductile pipelines constructed by the design criteria and construction specifications of both Korea and the US. These pipelines were embedded in dense sand overlying three different in situ soils (clay, sand, and gravel) subjected to earthquake excitations with peak ground accelerations (PGAs) of 0.2 to 1.2 g and 1994 Northridge and 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake loadings. The numerical results show that differences in the stress and strain rates are less than 10%. This implies that RR in HAZUS can be used for earthquake damage estimation of pipelines with a 90% confidence level in Korea.

Description: Water-soluble organic carbon in snow and ice deposited at Alpine, Greenland, and Antarctic sites: a critical review of available data and their atmospheric relevance Climate of the Past, 9, 2195-2211, 2013 Author(s): M. Legrand, S. Preunkert, B. Jourdain, J. Guilhermet, X. Fa{ï}n, I. Alekhina, and J. R. Petit While it is now recognized that organic matter dominates the present-day atmospheric aerosol load over continents, its sources remain poorly known. The studies of organic species or organic fractions trapped in ice cores may help to overcome this lack of knowledge. Available data on the dissolved (or total) organic carbon (DOC or TOC) content of snow and ice often appear largely inconsistent, and, until now, no critical review has been conducted to understand the causes of these inconsistencies. To draw a more consistent picture of the organic carbon amount present in solid precipitation that accumulates on cold glaciers, we here review available data and, when needed, complete the data set with analyses of selected samples. The different data sets are then discussed by considering the age (modern versus pre-industrial, Holocene versus Last glacial Maximum) and type (surface snow, firn, or ice) of investigated samples, the deployed method, and the applied contamination control. Finally, the OC (DOC or TOC) levels of Antarctic, Greenland, and Alpine ice cores are compared and discussed with respect to natural (biomass burning, vegetation emissions) and anthropogenic sources (fossil fuel combustion) contributing to atmospheric OC aerosol.

Description: Application and evaluation of McICA scheme with new radiation code in BCC_AGCM2.0.1 Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 4933-4982, 2013 Author(s): given_name prefix surname suffix, H. Zhang, X. Jing, and J. Li This research incorporates the Monte Carlo Independent Column Approximation (McICA) scheme with the correlated k-distribution BCC-RAD radiation model into the climate model BCC_AGCM2.0.1 and examines the impacts on modeled climate through several simulations with variations in cloud structures. Results from experiments with consistent sub-grid cloud structures show that both clear-sky radiation fluxes and cloud radiative forcings (CRFs) calculated by the new scheme are mostly improved relative to those calculated from the original one. The modeled atmospheric temperature and specific humidity are also improved due to changes in the radiative heating rates. The vertical overlap of fractional clouds and horizontal distribution of cloud condensation are important for computing CRFs. The maximum changes in seasonal CRF using the general overlap assumption (GenO) with different decorrelation depths ( L cf ) are larger than 10 and 20 Wm 2 for longwave (LW) CRF and shortwave (SW) CRF, respectively, mostly located in the Tropics and mid-latitude storm tracks. Larger (smaller) L cf in the Tropics (mid-latitude storm tracks) yield better cloud fraction and CRF compared with observations. The inclusion of an observation-based horizontal inhomogeneity of cloud condensation has a distinct impact on LW CRF and SW CRF, with global means of ∼1.2 Wm −2 and ∼3.7 Wm −2 at the top of atmosphere, respectively, making these much closer to observations. These results prove the reliability of the new model configuration to be used in BCC_AGCM2.0.1 for climate simulations, and also indicate that more detailed real-world information on cloud structures should be obtained to constrain cloud settings in McICA in the future.

Description: Seismic zones for Azores based on statistical criteria Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2337-2351, 2013 Author(s): M. C. M. Rodrigues and C. S. Oliveira The objective of this paper is to define seismic zones in the Azores based on statistical criteria. These seismic zones will likely be used in seismic simulations of occurrences in the Azores Archipelago. The data used in this work cover the time period from 1915 to 2011. The Azores region was divided into 1° × 1° area units, for which the seismicity and the maximum magnitudes of events were calculated. The seismicity, the largest earthquakes recorded and the geological characteristics of the region were used to group these area units because similar seismic zones must delineate areas with homogeneous seismic characteristics. We have identified seven seismic zones. To verify that the defined areas differ statistically, we considered the following dissimilarity measures (variables): time, size and seismic conditions – the number of seismic events with specific characteristics. Statistical tests, particularly goodness-of-fit tests, allowed us to conclude that, considering these three variables, the seven earthquake zones defined here are statistically distinct.

Description: Sub-ionospheric very low frequency perturbations associated with the 12 May 2008 M = 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 2331-2336, 2013 Author(s): A. K. Maurya, R. Singh, B. Veenadhari, S. Kumar, and A. K. Singh The present study reports the VLF (very low frequency) sub-ionospheric perturbations observed on transmitter JJI (22.1 kHz), Japan, received at the Indian low-latitude station, Allahabad ( geographic lat. 25.41° N, long 81.93° E), due to Wenchuan earthquake (EQ) that occurred on 12 May 2008 with the magnitude 7.9 and at the depth of 19 km in Sichuan province of Southwest China, located at 31.0° N, 103.4° E. The nighttime amplitude fluctuation analysis gives a significant increase in fluctuation and dispersion two days before EQ, when it crosses 2σ criterion. However, there was no significant change observed in the amplitude trend. The diurnal amplitude variation shows a significant increase in the amplitude of JJI signal on 11 and 12 May 2008. The gravity wave channel and changes in the electric field associated with this EQ seem to be the potential factors of the observed nighttime amplitude fluctuation, dispersion, and significant increase in the signal strength.

Description: A regional climate modelling projection ensemble experiment – NARCliM Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 5117-5139, 2013 Author(s): J. P. Evans, F. Ji, C. Lee, P. Smith, D. Argüeso, and L. Fita Including the impacts of climate change in decision making and planning processes is a challenge facing many regional governments including the New South Wales (NSW) and Australian Capital Territory (ACT) governments in Australia. NARCliM (NSW/ACT Regional Climate Modelling project) is a regional climate modelling project that aims to provide a comprehensive and consistent set of climate projections that can be used by all relevant government departments when considering climate change. To maximise end user engagement and ensure outputs are relevant to the planning process, a series of stakeholder workshops were run to define key aspects of the model experiment including spatial resolution, time slices, and output variables. As with all such experiments, practical considerations limit the number of ensembles members that can be simulated such that choices must be made concerning which Global Climate Models (GCMs) to downscale from, and which Regional Climate Models (RCMs) to downscale with. Here a methodology for making these choices is proposed that aims to sample the uncertainty in both GCMs and RCMs, as well as spanning the range of future climate projections present in the full GCM ensemble. The created ensemble provides a more robust view of future regional climate changes.

Description: Major dust events in Europe during marine isotope stage 5 (130–74 ka): a climatic interpretation of the "markers" Climate of the Past, 9, 2213-2230, 2013 Author(s): D.-D. Rousseau, M. Ghil, G. Kukla, A. Sima, P. Antoine, M. Fuchs, C. Hatté, F. Lagroix, M. Debret, and O. Moine At present, major dust storms are occurring at mid-latitudes in the Middle East and Asia, as well as at low latitudes in Northern Africa and in Australia. Western Europe, though, does not experience such dramatic climate events, except for some African dust reaching it from the Sahara. This modern situation is of particular interest, in the context of future climate projections, since the present interglacial is usually interpreted, in this context, as an analog of the warm Eemian interval. European terrestrial records show, however, major dust events during the penultimate interglacial and early glacial. These events are easily observed in loess records by their whitish-color deposits, which lie above and below dark chernozem paleosols in Central European records of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 age. We describe here the base of the Dolni Vestonice (DV) loess sequence, Czech Republic, as the reference of such records. The dust is deposited during intervals that are characterized by poor vegetation – manifested by high δ 13 C values and low magnetic susceptibility – while the fine sand and clay in the deposits shows grain sizes that are clearly different from the overlying pleniglacial loess deposits. Some of these dust events have been previously described as "Markers" or Marker Silts (MS) by one of us (G. Kukla), and are dated at about 111–109 ka and 93–92 ka, with a third and last one slightly visible at about 75–73 ka. Other events correspond to the loess material of Kukla's cycles, and are described as eolian silts (ES); they are observed in the same DV sequence and are dated at about 106–105 ka, 88–86 ka, and 78.5–77 ka. These dates are determined by considering the OSL ages with their errors measured on the studied sequence, and the comparison with Greenland ice-core and European speleothem chronologies. The fine eolian deposits mentioned above, MS as well as ES, correspond to short events that lasted about 2 ka; they are synchronous with re-advances of the polar front over the North Atlantic, as observed in marine sediment cores. These deposits also correlate with important changes observed in European vegetation. Some ES and MS events appear to be coeval with significant dust peaks recorded in the Greenland ice cores, while others are not. This decoupling between the European eolian and Greenland dust depositions is of considerable interest, as it differs from the fully glacial situation, in which the Eurasian loess sedimentation mimics the Greenland dust record. Previous field observations supported an interpretation of MS events as caused by continental dust storms. We show here, by a comparison with speleothems of the same age found in the northern Alps, that different atmospheric-circulation modes seem to be responsible for the two categories of dust events, MS vs. ES.

Description: Climate, people, fire and vegetation: new insights into vegetation dynamics in the Eastern Mediterranean since the 1st century AD Climate of the Past, 9, 57-87, 2013 Author(s): J. Bakker, E. Paulissen, D. Kaniewski, J. Poblome, V. De Laet, G. Verstraeten, and M. Waelkens Anatolia forms a bridge between Europe, Africa and Asia and is influenced by all three continents in terms of climate, vegetation and human civilisation. Unfortunately, well-dated palynological records focussing on the period from the end of the classical Roman period until subrecent times are rare for Anatolia and completely absent for southwest Turkey, resulting in a lacuna in knowledge concerning the interactions of climatic change, human impact, and environmental change in this important region. Two well-dated palaeoecological records from the Western Taurus Mountains, Turkey, provide a first relatively detailed record of vegetation dynamics from late Roman times until the present in SW Turkey. Combining pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, charcoal, sedimentological, archaeological data, and newly developed multivariate numerical analyses allows for the disentangling of climatic and anthropogenic influences on vegetation change. Results show changes in both the regional pollen signal as well as local soil sediment characteristics match shifts in regional climatic conditions. Both climatic as well as anthropogenic change had a strong influence on vegetation dynamics and land use. A moist environmental trend during the late-3rd century caused an increase in marshes and wetlands in the moister valley floors, limiting possibilities for intensive crop cultivation at such locations. A mid-7th century shift to pastoralism coincided with a climatic deterioration as well as the start of Arab incursions into the region, the former driving the way in which the vegetation developed afterwards. Resurgence in agriculture was observed in the study during the mid-10th century AD, coinciding with the Medieval Climate Anomaly. An abrupt mid-12th century decrease in agriculture is linked to socio-political change, rather than the onset of the Little Ice Age. Similarly, gradual deforestation occurring from the 16th century onwards has been linked to changes in land use during Ottoman times. The pollen data reveal that a fast rise in Pinus pollen after the end of the Beyşehir Occupation Phase need not always occur. The notion of high Pinus pollen percentages indicating an open landscape incapable of countering the influx of pine pollen is also deemed unrealistic. While multiple fires occurred in the region through time, extended fire periods, as had occurred during the Bronze Age and Beyşehir Occupation Phase, did not occur, and no signs of local fire activity were observed. Fires were never a major influence on vegetation dynamics. While no complete overview of post-BO Phase fire events can be presented, the available data indicates that fires in the vicinity of Gravgaz may have been linked to anthropogenic activity in the wider surroundings of the marsh. Fires in the vicinity of Bereket appeared to be linked to increased abundance of pine forests. There was no link with specifically wet or dry environmental conditions at either site. While this study reveals much new information concerning the impact of climate change and human occupation on the environment, more studies from SW Turkey are required in order to properly quantify the range of the observed phenomena and the magnitude of their impacts.

Description: The ICON-1.2 hydrostatic atmospheric dynamical core on triangular grids – Part 1: Formulation and performance of the baseline version Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 59-119, 2013 Author(s): H. Wan, M. A. Giorgetta, G. Zängl, M. Restelli, D. Majewski, L. Bonaventura, K. Fröhlich, D. Reinert, P. Rípodas, and L. Kornblueh A hydrostatic atmospheric dynamical core is developed for the purpose of global climate modelling. The model applies finite-difference methods to discretize the primitive equations on spherical icosahedral grids, using C-type staggering with triangles as control volumes for mass. This paper documents the numerical methods employed in the baseline version of the model, discusses their properties, and presents results from various idealized test cases. The evaluation shows that the new dynamical core is able to correctly represent the evolution of baroclinic eddies in the atmosphere as well as their role in heat and momentum transport. The simulations compare well with the reference solutions, and show a clear trend of convergence as the horizontal resolution increases. First results from two aqua-planet simulations are also presented, in which the equatorial wave spectra derived from tropical precipitation agree well with those simulated by a spectral transform model. The new dynamical core thus provides a good basis for further model development. Certain aspects of the model formulation that need further investigation and improvement are also pointed out.

Description: The GREENROOF module (v7.3) for modelling green roof hydrological and energetic performances within TEB Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 1127-1172, 2013 Author(s): C. S. de Munck, A. Lemonsu, R. Bouzouidja, V. Masson, and R. Claverie The need to prepare cities for climate change adaptation requests the urban modeller community to implement within their models sustainable adaptation strategies to be tested against specific city morphologies and scenarios. Greening city roofs is part of these strategies. In this context, a GREENROOF module for TEB (Town Energy Balance) has been developed to model the interactions between buildings and green roof systems at the scale of the city. This module allows one to describe an extensive green roof composed of four functional layers (vegetation – grasses or sedums, substrate, retention/drainage layers and artificial roof layers) and to model vegetation-atmosphere fluxes of heat, water and momentum, as well as the hydrological and thermal fluxes throughout the substrate and the drainage layers, and the thermal coupling with the structural building envelope. TEB-GREENROOF (v7.3) is therefore able to represent the impact of climate forcings on the functioning of the green roof vegetation and, conversely, the influence of the green roof on the local climate. A calibration exercise to adjust the model to the peculiar hydrological characteristics of the substrates and drainage layers commonly found on green roofs is performed for a case study located in Nancy (France) which consists of an extensive green roof with sedums. Model results for the optimum hydrological calibration show a good dynamics for the substrate water content which is nevertheless under-estimated but without impacting too much the green roof temperatures since they present a good agreement with observations. These results are encouraging with regard to modelling the impact of green roofs on thermal indoor comfort and energy consumption at the scale of cities, for which GREENROOF will be running with the building energy version of TEB, TEB-BEM. Moreover, the green roof studied for GREENROOF evaluation being a city-widespread type of extensive green roof, the hydrological characteristics derived through the evaluation exercise will be used as the standard configuration to model extensive green roofs at the scale of cities.

Description: A survey of strong high-frequency sea level oscillations along the US East Coast between 2006 and 2011 Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 473-482, 2013 Author(s): S. Pasquet, I. Vilibić, and J. Šepić A systematic survey of high-frequency sea level oscillations (

Description: A fuzzy decision making system for building damage map creation using high resolution satellite imagery Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 455-472, 2013 Author(s): H. Rastiveis, F. Samadzadegan, and P. Reinartz Recent studies have shown high resolution satellite imagery to be a powerful data source for post-earthquake damage assessment of buildings. Manual interpretation of these images, while being a reliable method for finding damaged buildings, is a subjective and time-consuming endeavor, rendering it unviable at times of emergency. The present research, proposes a new state-of-the-art method for automatic damage assessment of buildings using high resolution satellite imagery. In this method, at the first step a set of pre-processing algorithms are performed on the images. Then, extracting a candidate building from both pre- and post-event images, the intact roof part after an earthquake is found. Afterwards, by considering the shape and other structural properties of this roof part with its pre-event condition in a fuzzy inference system, the rate of damage for each candidate building is estimated. The results obtained from evaluation of this algorithm using QuickBird images of the December 2003 Bam, Iran, earthquake prove the ability of this method for post-earthquake damage assessment of buildings.

Description: The chemistry CATT–BRAMS model (CCATT–BRAMS 4.5): a regional atmospheric model system for integrated air quality and weather forecasting and research Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 1173-1222, 2013 Author(s): K. M. Longo, S. R. Freitas, M. Pirre, V. Marécal, L. F. Rodrigues, J. Panetta, M. F. Alonso, N. E. Rosário, D. S. Moreira, M. S. Gácita, J. Arteta, R. Fonseca, R. Stockler, D. M. Katsurayama, A. Fazenda, and M. Bela The Coupled Chemistry Aerosol-Tracer Transport model to the Brazilian developments on the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (CCATT–BRAMS, version 4.5) is an online regional chemical transport model designed for local and regional studies of atmospheric chemistry from surface to the lower stratosphere suitable both for operational and research purposes. It includes gaseous/aqueous chemistry, photochemistry, scavenging and dry deposition. The CCATT–BRAMS model takes advantages of the BRAMS specific development for the tropics/subtropics and of the recent availability of preprocessing tools for chemical mechanisms and of fast codes for photolysis rates. BRAMS includes state-of-the-art physical parameterizations and dynamic formulations to simulate atmospheric circulations of scales down to meters. The online coupling between meteorology and chemistry allows the system to be used for simultaneous atmospheric weather and chemical composition forecasts as well as potential feedbacks between them. The entire system comprises three preprocessing software tools for chemical mechanism (which are user defined), aerosol and trace gases emission fields and atmospheric and chemistry fields for initial and boundary conditions. In this paper, the model description is provided along evaluations performed using observational data obtained from ground-based stations, instruments aboard of aircrafts and retrieval from space remote sensing. The evaluation takes into account model application on different scales from megacities and Amazon Basin up to intercontinental region of the Southern Hemisphere.

Description: Multi-periodic climate dynamics: spectral analysis of long-term instrumental and proxy temperature records Climate of the Past, 9, 447-452, 2013 Author(s): H.-J. Lüdecke, A. Hempelmann, and C. O. Weiss The longest six instrumental temperature records of monthly means reach back maximally to 1757 AD and were recorded in Europe. All six show a V-shape, with temperature drop in the 19th and rise in the 20th century. Proxy temperature time series of Antarctic ice cores show this same characteristic shape, indicating this pattern as a global phenomenon. We used the mean of the six instrumental records for analysis by discrete Fourier transform (DFT), wavelets, and the detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA). For comparison, a stalagmite record was also analyzed by DFT. The harmonic decomposition of the abovementioned mean shows only six significant frequencies above periods over 30 yr. The Pearson correlation between the mean, smoothed by a 15-yr running average (boxcar) and the reconstruction using the six significant frequencies, yields r = 0.961. This good agreement has a 〉 99.9% confidence level confirmed by Monte Carlo simulations. It shows that the climate dynamics is governed at present by periodic oscillations. We find indications that observed periodicities result from intrinsic dynamics.

Description: Parallel algorithms for planar and spherical Delaunay construction with an application to centroidal Voronoi tessellations Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 1427-1466, 2013 Author(s): D. W. Jacobsen, M. Gunzburger, T. Ringler, J. Burkardt, and J. Peterson A new algorithm, featuring overlapping domain decompositions, for the parallel construction of Delaunay and Voronoi tessellations is developed. Overlapping allows for the seamless stitching of the partial Delaunay tessellations constructed by individual processors. The algorithm is then modified, by the addition of stereographic projections, to handle the parallel construction of spherical Delaunay and Voronoi tessellations. The algorithms are then embedded into algorithms for the parallel construction of planar and spherical centroidal Voronoi tessellations that require multiple constructions of Delaunay tessellations. Computational tests are used to demonstrate the efficiency and scalability of the algorithms for spherical Delaunay and centroidal Voronoi tessellations. Compared to serial versions of the algorithm and to the STRIPACK-based approaches, the new parallel algorithm results in significant speedups for the construction of spherical centroidal Voronoi tessellations.

Description: 19 May 2011 Kütahya – Simav earthquake and evaluation of existing sample RC buildings according to the TEC-2007 criteria Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 505-522, 2013 Author(s): M. H. Arslan, M. Olgun, M. A. Köroğlu, I. H. Erkan, A. Köken, and O. Tan This study examines the damage caused to reinforced concrete structures by the 2011 earthquake that occurred in Simav, Turkey. The study briefly reports on post-earthquake field observations, tectonic characteristics of the earthquake area, geotechnical characteristics of the field, and seismic characteristics of the earthquake. The main part of the study comprises a field study, material experiments, and performance analyses of two reinforced concrete buildings that survived the earthquake with medium level damage. The building performance was calculated and assessed according to the Turkish Earthquake Code requirements for existing building stock, and recommendations were made based on the findings.

Description: Tsunami damping by mangrove forest: a laboratory study using parameterized trees Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 483-503, 2013 Author(s): A. Strusińska-Correia, S. Husrin, and H. Oumeraci Tsunami attenuation by coastal vegetation was examined under laboratory conditions for mature mangroves Rhizophora sp. The developed novel tree parameterization concept, accounting for both bio-mechanical and structural tree properties, allowed to substitute the complex tree structure by a simplified tree model of identical hydraulic resistance. The most representative parameterized mangrove model was selected among the tested models with different frontal area and root density, based on hydraulic test results. The selected parameterized tree models were arranged in a forest model of different width and further tested systematically under varying incident tsunami conditions (solitary waves and tsunami bores). The damping performance of the forest models under these two flow regimes was compared in terms of wave height and force envelopes, wave transmission coefficient as well as drag and inertia coefficients. Unlike the previous studies, the results indicate a significant contribution of the foreshore topography to solitary wave energy reduction through wave breaking in comparison to that attributed to the forest itself. A similar rate of tsunami transmission (ca. 20%) was achieved for both flow conditions (solitary waves and tsunami bores) and the widest forest (75 m in prototype) investigated. Drag coefficient C D attributed to the solitary waves tends to be constant ( C D = 1.5) over the investigated range of the Reynolds number.

Description: The East Asian Summer Monsoon at mid-Holocene: results from PMIP3 simulations Climate of the Past, 9, 453-466, 2013 Author(s): W. Zheng, B. Wu, J. He, and Y. Yu Ten Coupled General Circulation Models (CGCMs) participated in the third phase of Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP3) are assessed for the East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM) in both the pre-Industrial (PI, 0 ka) and mid-Holocene (MH, 6 ka) simulations. Results show that the PMIP3 model median captures well the large-scale characteristics of the EASM, including the two distinct features of the Meiyu rainbelt and the stepwise meridional displacement of the monsoonal rainbelt. At mid-Holocene, the PMIP3 model median shows significant warming (cooling) during boreal summer (winter) over Eurasia continent that are dominated by the changes of insolation. However, the PMIP3 models fail to simulate a warmer annual mean and winter surface air temperature (TAS) over eastern China as derived from proxy records. The EASM at MH are featured by the changes of large-scale circulation over Eastern China while the changes of precipitation are not significant over its sub-domains of the Southern China and the lower reaches of Yangzi River. The inter-model differences for the monsoon precipitation can be associated with different configurations of the changes in large-scale circulation and the water vapour content, of which the former determines the sign of precipitation changes. The large model spread for the TAS over Tibetan Plateau has a positive relationship with the precipitation in the lower reaches of Yangzi River, yet this relationship does not apply to those PMIP3 models in which the monsoonal precipitation is more sensitive to the changes of large-scale circulation. Except that the PMIP3 model median captured the warming of annual mean TAS over Tibetan Plateau, no significant improvements can be concluded when compared with the PMIP2 models results.

Description: Paleohydrology reconstruction and Holocene climate variability in the South Adriatic Sea Climate of the Past, 9, 499-515, 2013 Author(s): G. Siani, M. Magny, M. Paterne, M. Debret, and M. Fontugne Holocene paleohydrology reconstruction is derived combining planktonic and benthic stable oxygen and carbon isotopes, sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and oxygen isotope composition of seawater (δ 18 O w ) from a high sedimentation core collected in the South Adriatic Sea (SAS). Core chronology is based on 10 AMS 14 C measures on planktonic foraminifera and tephra layers. Results reveal two contrasted paleohydrological periods that reflect (i) a marked lowering of δ 18 O w /salinity during the early to mid-Holocene (11.5 ka to 6.3 ka), including the two-step sapropel S1 deposition, followed during the mid- to upper Holocene by (ii) a prevailing period of increased salinity and enhanced arid conditions in the South Adriatic Basin. Superimposed on these trends, short-term centennial-scale hydrological events punctuated the Holocene period in the SAS. During the early to mid-Holocene, two main SST coolings together with prominent δ 18 O w /salinity lowering delineate the sapropel S1 interruption and the post-sapropel phase between 7.3 to 6.3 ka. After 6 ka, centennial-scale δ 18 O w and G. bulloides δ 13 C lowering, mostly centered between 3 to 0.6 ka, reflect short-term hydrological changes related to more intensive runoff of the Po and/or Apennine rivers. These short-term events, even of lesser amplitude compared to the early to mid-Holocene period, may have induced a lowering of sea surface density and consequently reduced and/or inhibited the formation of deep bottom waters in the SAS. Comparison of the emerging centennial- to millennial-scale hydrological record with previous climatic records from the central Mediterranean area and north of the Alps reveal possible synchronicities (within the radiocarbon-dating uncertainty) between phases of lower salinity in the SAS and periods of wetter climatic conditions around the north-central Adriatic Sea. Finally, wavelet analyses provide new clues about the potential origin of climate variability in the SAS, confirming the evidence for a mid-Holocene transition in the central Mediterranean climate and the dominance of a ~1670-yr periodicity after 6 ka, reflecting a plausible connection with the North Atlantic climate system.

Description: Variability of the ocean heat content during the last millennium – an assessment with the ECHO-g Model Climate of the Past, 9, 547-565, 2013 Author(s): P. Ortega, M. Montoya, F. González-Rouco, H. Beltrami, and D. Swingedouw Studies addressing climate variability during the last millennium generally focus on variables with a direct influence on climate variability, like the fast thermal response to varying radiative forcing, or the large-scale changes in atmospheric dynamics (e.g. North Atlantic Oscillation). The ocean responds to these variations by slowly integrating in depth the upper heat flux changes, thus producing a delayed influence on ocean heat content (OHC) that can later impact low frequency SST (sea surface temperature) variability through reemergence processes. In this study, both the externally and internally driven variations of the OHC during the last millennium are investigated using a set of fully coupled simulations with the ECHO-G (coupled climate model ECHAMA4 and ocean model HOPE-G) atmosphere–ocean general circulation model (AOGCM). When compared to observations for the last 55 yr, the model tends to overestimate the global trends and underestimate the decadal OHC variability. Extending the analysis back to the last one thousand years, the main impact of the radiative forcing is an OHC increase at high latitudes, explained to some extent by a reduction in cloud cover and the subsequent increase of short-wave radiation at the surface. This OHC response is dominated by the effect of volcanism in the preindustrial era, and by the fast increase of GHGs during the last 150 yr. Likewise, salient impacts from internal climate variability are observed at regional scales. For instance, upper temperature in the equatorial Pacific is controlled by ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) variability from interannual to multidecadal timescales. Also, both the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) modulate intermittently the interdecadal OHC variability in the North Pacific and Mid Atlantic, respectively. The NAO, through its influence on North Atlantic surface heat fluxes and convection, also plays an important role on the OHC at multiple timescales, leading first to a cooling in the Labrador and Irminger seas, and later on to a North Atlantic warming, associated with a delayed impact on the AMO.

Description: Modulation of Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic climate by variable drawdown of atmospheric p CO 2 from weathering of basaltic provinces on continents drifting through the equatorial humid belt Climate of the Past, 9, 525-546, 2013 Author(s): D. V. Kent and G. Muttoni The small reservoir of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere ( p CO 2 ) that modulates climate through the greenhouse effect reflects a delicate balance between large fluxes of sources and sinks. The major long-term source of CO 2 is global outgassing from sea-floor spreading, subduction, hotspot activity, and metamorphism; the ultimate sink is through weathering of continental silicates and deposition of carbonates. Most carbon cycle models are driven by changes in the source flux scaled to variable rates of ocean floor production, but ocean floor production may not be distinguishable from being steady since 180 Ma. We evaluate potential changes in sources and sinks of CO 2 for the past 120 Ma in a paleogeographic context. Our new calculations show that decarbonation of pelagic sediments by Tethyan subduction contributed only modestly to generally high p CO 2 levels from the Late Cretaceous until the early Eocene, and thus shutdown of this CO 2 source with the collision of India and Asia at the early Eocene climate optimum at around 50 Ma was inadequate to account for the large and prolonged decrease in p CO 2 that eventually allowed the growth of significant Antarctic ice sheets by around 34 Ma. Instead, variation in area of continental basalt terranes in the equatorial humid belt (5° S–5° N) seems to be a dominant factor controlling how much CO 2 is retained in the atmosphere via the silicate weathering feedback. The arrival of the highly weatherable Deccan Traps in the equatorial humid belt at around 50 Ma was decisive in initiating the long-term slide to lower atmospheric p CO 2 , which was pushed further down by the emplacement of the 30 Ma Ethiopian Traps near the equator and the southerly tectonic extrusion of SE Asia, an arc terrane that presently is estimated to account for 1/4 of CO 2 consumption from all basaltic provinces that account for ~1/3 of the total CO 2 consumption by continental silicate weathering (Dessert et al., 2003). A negative climate-feedback mechanism that (usually) inhibits the complete collapse of atmospheric p CO 2 is the accelerating formation of thick cation-deficient soils that retard chemical weathering of the underlying bedrock. Nevertheless, equatorial climate seems to be relatively insensitive to p CO 2 greenhouse forcing and thus with availability of some rejuvenating relief as in arc terranes or thick basaltic provinces, silicate weathering in this venue is not subject to a strong negative feedback, providing an avenue for ice ages. The safety valve that prevents excessive atmospheric p CO 2 levels is the triggering of silicate weathering of continental areas and basaltic provinces in the temperate humid belt. Excess organic carbon burial seems to have played a negligible role in atmospheric p CO 2 over the Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic.

Description: PEATBOG: a biogeochemical model for analyzing coupled carbon and nitrogen dynamics in northern peatlands Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 1599-1688, 2013 Author(s): Y. Wu and C. Blodau Elevated nitrogen deposition and climate change alter the vegetation communities and carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling in peatlands. To address this issue we developed a new process-oriented biogeochemical model (PEATBOG) for analyzing coupled carbon and nitrogen dynamics in northern peatlands. The model consists of four submodels, which simulate: (1) daily water table depth and depth profiles of soil moisture, temperature and oxygen levels; (2) competition among three plants functional types (PFTs), production and litter production of plants; (3) decomposition of peat; and (4) production, consumption, diffusion and export of dissolved C and N species in soil water. The model is novel in the integration of the C and N cycles, the explicit spatial resolution belowground, the consistent conceptualization of movement of water and solutes, the incorporation of stoichiometric controls on elemental fluxes and a consistent conceptualization of C and N reactivity in vegetation and soil organic matter. The model was evaluated for the Mer Bleue Bog, near Ottawa, Ontario, with regards to simulation of soil moisture and temperature and the most important processes in the C and N cycles. Model sensitivity was tested for nitrogen input, precipitation, and temperature, and the choices of the most uncertain parameters were justified. A simulation of nitrogen deposition over 40 yr demonstrates the advantages of the PEATBOG model in tracking biogeochemical effects and vegetation change in the ecosystem.

Description: δ 18 O water isotope in the i LOVECLIM model (version 1.0) – Part 3: A paleoperspective based on present-day data-model comparison for oxygen stable isotopes in carbonates Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 1527-1558, 2013 Author(s): T. Caley and D. M. Roche Oxygen stable isotopes ( 18 O) are among the most usual tools in paleoclimatology/paleoceanography. Simulation of oxygen stable isotopes allows testing how the past variability of these isotopes in water can be interpreted. By modelling the proxy directly in the model, the results can also be directly compared with the data. Water isotopes have been implemented in the global three-dimensional model of intermediate complexity i LOVECLIM allowing fully coupled atmosphere-ocean simulations. In this study, we present the validation of the model results for present day climate against global database for oxygen stable isotopes in carbonates. The limitation of the model together with the processes operating in the natural environment reveal the complexity of use the continental calcite 18 O signal of speleothems for a data-model comparison exercise. On the contrary, the reconstructed surface ocean calcite δ 18 O signal in i LOVECLIM does show a very good agreement with late Holocene database (foraminifers) at the global and regional scales. Our results indicate that temperature and the isotopic composition of the seawater are the main control on the fossil δ 18 O signal recorded in foraminifer shells and that depth habitat and seasonality play a role but have secondary importance. We argue that a data-model comparison for surface ocean calcite δ 18 O in past climate, such as the last glacial maximum (≈21 000 yr), could constitute an interesting tool for mapping the potential shifts of the frontal systems and circulation changes throughout time. Similarly, the potential changes in intermediate oceanic circulation systems in the past could be documented by a data (benthic foraminifers)-model comparison exercise whereas future investigations are necessary in order to quantitatively compare the results with data for the deep ocean.

Description: δ 18 O water isotope in the i LOVECLIM model (version 1.0) – Part 2: Evaluation of model results against observed δ 18 O in water samples Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 1495-1525, 2013 Author(s): D. M. Roche and T. Caley The H 2 18 O stable isotope was previously introduced in the three coupled components of the Earth System Model i LOVECLIM: atmosphere, ocean and vegetation. The results of a long (5000 yr) pre-industrial equilibrium simulation are presented and evaluated against measurement of H 2 18 O abundance in present-day water for the atmospheric and oceanic components. For the atmosphere, it is found that the model reproduces the observed spatial distribution and relationships to climate variables with some merit, though limitations following our approach are highlighted. Indeed, we obtain the main gradients with a robust representation of the Rayleigh distillation but caveats appear in Antarctica and around the Mediterranean region due to model limitation. For the oceanic component, the agreement between the modelled and observed distribution of water δ 18 O is found to be very good. Mean ocean surface latitudinal gradients are faithfully reproduced as well as the mark of the main intermediate and deep water masses. This opens large prospects for the applications in paleoclimatic context.

Description: δ 18 O water isotope in the i LOVECLIM model (version 1.0) – Part 1: Implementation and verification Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 1467-1494, 2013 Author(s): D. M. Roche A new 18 O stable water isotope scheme is developed for three components of the i LOVECLIM coupled climate model: atmospheric, oceanic and land surface. The equations required to reproduce the fractionation of stable water isotopes in the simplified atmospheric model ECBilt are developed consistently with the moisture scheme. Simplifications in the processes are made to account for the simplified vertical structure including only one moist layer. Implementation of these equations together with a passive tracer scheme for the ocean and a equilibrium fractionation scheme for the land surface leads to the closure of the (isotopic-)water budget in our climate system. Following the implementation, verification of the existence of usual δ 18 O to climatic relationships are performed for the Rayleigh distillation, the Dansgaard relationship and the δ 18 O–salinity relationship. Advantages and caveats of the approach taken are outlined.

Description: Capabilities and performance of Elmer/Ice, a new generation ice-sheet model Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 1689-1741, 2013 Author(s): O. Gagliardini, T. Zwinger, F. Gillet-Chaulet, G. Durand, L. Favier, B. de Fleurian, R. Greve, M. Malinen, C. Martín, P. Råback, J. Ruokolainen, M. Sacchettini, M. Schäfer, H. Seddik, and J. Thies The Fourth IPCC Assessment Report concluded that ice-sheet flow models are unable to forecast the current increase of polar ice sheet discharge and the associated contribution to sea-level rise. Since then, the glaciological community has undertaken a huge effort to develop and improve a new generation of ice-flow models, and as a result, a significant number of new ice-sheet models have emerged. Among them is the parallel finite-element model Elmer/Ice, based on the open-source multi-physics code Elmer. It was one of the first full-Stokes models used to make projections for the evolution of the whole Greenland ice sheet for the coming two centuries. Originally developed to solve local ice flow problems of high mechanical and physical complexity, Elmer/Ice has today reached the maturity to solve larger scale problems, earning the status of an ice-sheet model. Here, we summarise almost 10 yr of development performed by different groups. We present the components already included in Elmer/Ice, its numerical performance, selected applications, as well as developments planned for the future.

Description: WRFv3.2-SPAv2: development and validation of a coupled ecosystem-atmosphere model, scaling from surface fluxes of CO 2 and energy to atmospheric profiles Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 1559-1598, 2013 Author(s): T. L. Smallman, J. B. Moncrieff, and M. Williams The Weather Research & Forecasting meteorological (WRF) model has been coupled to the Soil Plant Atmosphere (SPA) terrestrial ecosystem model, to produce WRF-SPA. SPA generates realistic land-atmosphere exchanges through fully coupled hydrological, carbon and energy cycles. The addition of a land surface model (SPA) capable of modelling biospheric CO 2 exchange allows WRF-SPA to be used for investigating the feedbacks between biosphere carbon balance, meteorology and land management/land use change. We have extensively validated WRF-SPA using multi-annual observations of air temperature, turbulent fluxes, net radiation and net ecosystem exchange of CO 2 at three sites, representing the dominant vegetation types in Scotland (forest, managed grassland and arable agriculture). WRF-SPA generates more realistic seasonal behaviour at the site level compared to an unmodified version of WRF, and produces realistic CO 2 exchanges. WRF-SPA is also able to realistically model atmospheric profiles of CO 2 over Scotland, spanning a 3 yr period (2004–2006), capturing both profile structure, indicating realistic transport, and magnitude indicating appropriate source sink distribution and CO 2 exchange. WRF-SPA makes use of CO 2 tracer pools and can therefore identify and quantify land surface contributions to the modelled atmospheric CO 2 signal at a specified location.

Description: Comparison between different approaches to modeling shallow landslide susceptibility: a case history in Oltrepo Pavese, Northern Italy Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 559-573, 2013 Author(s): D. Zizioli, C. Meisina, R. Valentino, and L. Montrasio On the 27 and 28 April 2009, the area of Oltrepo Pavese in northern Italy was affected by a very intense rainfall event that caused a great number of shallow landslides. These instabilities occurred on slopes covered by vineyards or recently formed woodlands and caused damage to many roads and one human loss. Based on aerial photographs taken immediately after the event and field surveys, more than 1600 landslides were detected. After acquiring topographical data, geotechnical properties of the soils and land use, susceptibility analysis on a territorial scale was carried out. In particular, different physically based models were applied to two contiguous sites with the same geological context but different typologies and sizes of shallow landslides. This paper presents the comparison between the ex-post results obtained from the different approaches. On the basis of the observed landslide localizations, the accuracy of the different models was evaluated, and the significant results are highlighted.

Description: Bayesian hierarchical modelling of North Atlantic windiness Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 545-557, 2013 Author(s): E. Vanem and O. N. Breivik Extreme weather conditions represent serious natural hazards to ship operations and may be the direct cause or contributing factor to maritime accidents. Such severe environmental conditions can be taken into account in ship design and operational windows can be defined that limits hazardous operations to less extreme conditions. Nevertheless, possible changes in the statistics of extreme weather conditions, possibly due to anthropogenic climate change, represent an additional hazard to ship operations that is less straightforward to account for in a consistent way. Obviously, there are large uncertainties as to how future climate change will affect the extreme weather conditions at sea and there is a need for stochastic models that can describe the variability in both space and time at various scales of the environmental conditions. Previously, Bayesian hierarchical space-time models have been developed to describe the variability and complex dependence structures of significant wave height in space and time. These models were found to perform reasonably well and provided some interesting results, in particular, pertaining to long-term trends in the wave climate. In this paper, a similar framework is applied to oceanic windiness and the spatial and temporal variability of the 10-m wind speed over an area in the North Atlantic ocean is investigated. When the results from the model for North Atlantic windiness is compared to the results for significant wave height over the same area, it is interesting to observe that whereas an increasing trend in significant wave height was identified, no statistically significant long-term trend was estimated in windiness. This may indicate that the increase in significant wave height is not due to an increase in locally generated wind waves, but rather to increased swell. This observation is also consistent with studies that have suggested a poleward shift of the main storm tracks.

Description: Sensitivities and uncertainties of modeled ground temperatures in mountain environments Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 791-840, 2013 Author(s): S. Gubler, S. Endrizzi, S. Gruber, and R. S. Purves Before operational use or for decision making, models must be validated, and the degree of trust in model outputs should be quantified. Often, model validation is performed at single locations due to the lack of spatially-distributed data. Since the analysis of parametric model uncertainties can be performed independently of observations, it is a suitable method to test the influence of environmental variability on model evaluation. In this study, the sensitivities and uncertainty of a physically-based mountain permafrost model are quantified within an artificial topography consisting of different elevations and exposures combined with six ground types characterized by their hydraulic properties. The analyses performed for all combinations of topographic factors and ground types allowed to quantify the variability of model sensitivity and uncertainty within mountain regions. We found that modeled snow duration considerably influences the mean annual ground temperature (MAGT). The melt-out day of snow (MD) is determined by processes determining snow accumulation and melting. Parameters such as the temperature and precipitation lapse rate and the snow correction factor have therefore a great impact on modeled MAGT. Ground albedo changes MAGT from 0.5 to 4°C in dependence of the elevation, the aspect and the ground type. South-exposed inclined locations are more sensitive to changes in ground albedo than north-exposed slopes since they receive more solar radiation. The sensitivity to ground albedo increases with decreasing elevation due to shorter snow cover. Snow albedo and other parameters determining the amount of reflected solar radiation are important, changing MAGT at different depths by more than 1°C. Parameters influencing the turbulent fluxes as the roughness length or the dew temperature are more sensitive at low elevation sites due to higher air temperatures and decreased solar radiation. Modeling the individual terms of the energy balance correctly is hence crucial in any physically-based permafrost model, and a separate evaluation of the energy fluxes could substantially improve the results of permafrost models. The sensitivity in the hydraulic properties change considerably for different ground types: rock or clay for instance are not sensitive while gravel or peat, accurate measurements of the hydraulic properties could significantly improve modeled ground temperatures. Further, the discretization of ground, snow and time have an impact on modeled MAGT that cannot be neglected (more than 1°C for several discretization parameters). We show that the temporal resolution should be at least one hour to ensure errors less than 0.2°C in modeled MAGT, and the uppermost ground layer should at most be 20 mm thick. Within the topographic setting, the total parametric output uncertainties expressed as the standard deviation of the Monte Carlo model simulations range from 0.1 to 0.5°C for clay, silt and rock, and from 0.1 to 0.8°C for peat, sand and gravel. These uncertainties are comparable to the variability of ground surface temperatures measured within 10 m × 10 m grids in Switzerland. The increased uncertainties for sand, peat and gravel is largely due to the high hydraulic conductivity.

Description: One-dimensional simulation of fire injection heights in contrasted meteorological scenarios with PRM and Meso-NH models Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 721-790, 2013 Author(s): S. Strada, S. R. Freitas, C. Mari, K. M. Longo, and R. Paugam Wild-fires release huge amounts of aerosol and hazardous trace gases in the atmosphere. The residence time and the dispersion of fire pollutants in the atmosphere can range from hours to days and from local to continental scales. These various scenarios highly depend on the injection height of smoke plumes. The altitude at which fire products are injected in the atmosphere is controlled by fire characteristics and meteorological conditions. Injection height however is still poorly accounted in chemistry transport models for which fires are sub-grid scale processes which need to be parametrised. Only recently, physically-based approaches for estimating the fire injection heights have been developed which consider both the convective updrafts induced by the release of fire sensible heat and the impact of background meteorological environment on the fire convection dynamics. In this work, two different models are used to simulate fire injection heights in contrasted meteorological scenarios: a Mediterranean arson fire and two Amazonian deforestation fires. A Eddy-Diffusivity/Mass-Flux approach, formerly developed to reproduce convective boundary layer in the non-hydrostatic meteorological model Meso-NH, is compared to the 1-D Plume Rise Model. For both models, radiosonde data and re-analyses from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) have been used as initial conditions to explore the sensitivity of the models responses to different meteorological forcings. The two models predict injection heights for the Mediterranean fire between 1.7 and 3.3 km with the Meso-NH/EDMF model systematically higher than the 1-D PRM model. Both models show a limited sensitivity to the meteorological forcings with a 20–30% difference in the injection height between radiosondes and ECMWF data for this case. Injection heights calculated for the two Amazonian fires ranges from 5 to 6.5 km for the 1-D PRM model and from 2 to 4 km for the Meso-NH/EDMF model. The difference of smoke plume heights between the two models can reach 3–4 km. A large difference is obtained for the windy-wet Amazonian fire by the 1-D PRM model with a injection height 1.5 km higher when ECMWF re-analyses are used compared to the run with the radiosonde forcing. For the Mediterranean case, both models forecast a plume injection height above the boundary layer, although there are evidences that this particular fire propagated near the surface, highlighting the current limitations of the two approaches.

Description: Real-time flood forecasting coupling different postprocessing techniques of precipitation forecast ensembles with a distributed hydrological model. The case study of may 2008 flood in western Piemonte, Italy Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 211-220, 2013 Author(s): D. Cane, S. Ghigo, D. Rabuffetti, and M. Milelli In this work, we compare the performance of an hydrological model when driven by probabilistic rain forecast derived from two different post-processing techniques. The region of interest is Piemonte, northwestern Italy, a complex orography area close to the Mediterranean Sea where the forecast are often a challenge for weather models. The May 2008 flood is here used as a case study, and the very dense weather station network allows us for a very good description of the event and initialization of the hydrological model. The ensemble probabilistic forecasts of the rainfall fields are obtained with the Bayesian model averaging, with the classical poor man ensemble approach and with a new technique, the Multimodel SuperEnsemble Dressing. In this case study, the meteo-hydrological chain initialized with the Multimodel SuperEnsemble Dressing is able to provide more valuable discharge ranges with respect to the one initialized with Bayesian model averaging multi-model.

Description: Representation of nucleation mode microphysics in global aerosol microphysics models Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 893-924, 2013 Author(s): Y. H. Lee, J. R. Pierce, and P. J. Adams In models, nucleation mode (1 nm 〈 D p 〈 10 nm) particle microphysics can be represented explicitly with aerosol microphysical processes or can be parameterized to obtain the growth and survival of nuclei to the model's lower size boundary. This study investigates how the representation of nucleation mode microphysics impacts aerosol number predictions in the TwO-Moment Aerosol Sectional (TOMAS) aerosol microphysics model running with the GISS GCM II-prime by varying its lowest diameter boundary: 1 nm, 3 nm, and 10 nm. The model with the 1 nm boundary simulates the nucleation mode particles with fully resolved microphysical processes, while the model with the 10 nm and 3 nm boundaries uses a nucleation mode dynamics parameterization to account for the growth of nucleated particles to 10 nm and 3 nm, respectively. We also investigate the impact of the time step for aerosol microphysical processes (a 10-min versus a 1-h time step) to aerosol number predictions in the TOMAS models with explicit dynamics for the nucleation mode particles (i.e. 3 nm and 1 nm boundary). The model with the explicit microphysics (i.e. 1 nm boundary) with the 10-min time step is used as a numerical benchmark simulation to estimate biases caused by varying the lower size cutoff and the time step. Different representations of the nucleation mode have a significant effect on the formation rate of particles larger than 10 nm from nucleated particles ( J 10 ) and the burdens and lifetimes of ultrafine mode (10 nm 〈 D p 〈 70 nm) particles but have less impact on the burdens and lifetimes of CCN-sized particles. The models using parameterized microphysics (i.e. 10 nm and 3 nm boundaries) result in higher J 10 and shorter coagulation lifetimes of ultrafine mode particles than the model with explicit dynamics (i.e. 1 nm boundary). The spatial distributions of CN10 ( D p 〉 10 nm) and CCN(0.2%) (i.e. CCN concentrations at 0.2% supersaturation) are moderately affected, especially CN10 predictions above ~ 700 hPa where nucleation contributes most strongly to CN10 concentrations. The lowermost layer CN10 is substantially improved with the 3 nm boundary (compared to 10 nm) in most areas. The overprediction in CN10 with the 3 nm and 10 nm boundaries can be explained by the overprediction of J 10 or J 3 with the parameterized microphysics possibly due to the instantaneous growth rate assumption in the survival and growth parameterization. The errors in CN10 predictions are sensitive to the choice of the lower size boundary but not to the choice of the time step applied to the microphysical processes. The spatial distribution of CCN(0.2%) with the 3 nm boundary is almost identical to that with the 1 nm boundary, but that with the 10 nm boundary can differ more than 10–40% in some areas. We found that the deviation in the 10 nm simulations is partly due to the longer time step (i.e. 1-h time step used in the 10 nm simulations compared to 10-min time step used in the benchmark simulations) but, even with the same time step, the 10 nm cutoff showed noticeably higher errors than the 3 nm cutoff. In conclusion, we generally recommend using a lower diameter boundary of 3 nm for studies focused on aerosol indirect effects but down to 1 nm boundary for studies focused on CN10 predictions or nucleation.

Description: Technical Note: Use of remote sensing for landslide studies in Europe Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 299-309, 2013 Author(s): V. Tofani, S. Segoni, A. Agostini, F. Catani, and N. Casagli Within the framework of FP7, an EU-funded SafeLand project, a questionnaire was prepared to collect information about the use of remote sensing for landslide study and to evaluate its actual application in landslide detection, mapping and monitoring. The questionnaire was designed using a Google form and was disseminated among end-users and researchers involved in landslide studies in Europe. In total, 49 answers from 17 different European countries were collected. The outcomes showed that landslide detection and mapping is mainly performed with aerial photos, often associated with optical and radar imagery. Concerning landslide monitoring, satellite radars prevail over the other types of data. Remote sensing is mainly used for detection/mapping and monitoring of slides, flows and lateral spreads with a preferably large scale of analysis (1:5000–1:25 000). All the compilers integrate remote sensing data with other thematic data, mainly geological maps, landslide inventory maps and DTMs and derived maps. According to the research and working experience of the compilers, remote sensing is generally considered to have a medium effectiveness/reliability for landslide studies. The results of the questionnaire can contribute to an overall sketch of the use of remote sensing in current landslide studies and show that remote sensing can be considered a powerful and well-established instrument for landslide mapping, monitoring and hazard analysis.

Description: Seismic risk assessment of architectural heritages in Gyeongju considering local site effects Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 251-262, 2013 Author(s): H.-J. Park, D.-S. Kim, and D.-M. Kim A seismic risk assessment is conducted for cultural heritage sites in Gyeongju, the capital of Korea's ancient Silla Kingdom. Gyeongju, home to UNESCO World Heritage sites, contains remarkable artifacts of Korean Buddhist art. An extensive geotechnical survey including a series of in situ tests is presented, providing pertinent soil profiles for site response analyses on thirty cultural heritage sites. After the shear wave velocity profiles and dynamic material properties were obtained, site response analyses were carried out at each historical site and the amplification characteristics, site period, and response spectrum of the site were determined for the earthquake levels of 2400 yr and 1000 yr return periods based on the Korean seismic hazard map. Response spectrum and corresponding site coefficients obtained from site response analyses considering geologic conditions differ significantly from the current Korean seismic code. This study confirms the importance of site-specific ground response analyses considering local geological conditions. Results are given in the form of the spatial distribution of bedrock depth, site period, and site amplification coefficients, which are particularly valuable in the context of a seismic vulnerability study. This study presents the potential amplification of hazard maps and provides primary data on the seismic risk assessment of each cultural heritage.

Description: Simulating future precipitation extremes in a complex Alpine catchment Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 263-277, 2013 Author(s): C. Dobler, G. Bürger, and J. Stötter The objectives of the present investigation are (i) to study the effects of climate change on precipitation extremes and (ii) to assess the uncertainty in the climate projections. The investigation is performed on the Lech catchment, located in the Northern Limestone Alps. In order to estimate the uncertainty in the climate projections, two statistical downscaling models as well as a number of global and regional climate models were considered. The downscaling models applied are the Expanded Downscaling (XDS) technique and the Long Ashton Research Station Weather Generator (LARS-WG). The XDS model, which is driven by analyzed or simulated large-scale synoptic fields, has been calibrated using ECMWF-interim reanalysis data and local station data. LARS-WG is controlled through stochastic parameters representing local precipitation variability, which are calibrated from station data only. Changes in precipitation mean and variability as simulated by climate models were then used to perturb the parameters of LARS-WG in order to generate climate change scenarios. In our study we use climate simulations based on the A1B emission scenario. The results show that both downscaling models perform well in reproducing observed precipitation extremes. In general, the results demonstrate that the projections are highly variable. The choice of both the GCM and the downscaling method are found to be essential sources of uncertainty. For spring and autumn, a slight tendency toward an increase in the intensity of future precipitation extremes is obtained, as a number of simulations show statistically significant increases in the intensity of 90th and 99th percentiles of precipitation on wet days as well as the 5- and 20-yr return values.

Description: Fuzzy approach to analysis of flood risk based on variable fuzzy sets and improved information diffusion methods Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 239-249, 2013 Author(s): Q. Li The predictive analysis of natural disasters and their consequences is challenging because of uncertainties and incomplete data. The present article studies the use of variable fuzzy sets (VFS) and improved information diffusion method (IIDM) to construct a composite method. The proposed method aims to integrate multiple factors and quantification of uncertainties within a consistent system for catastrophic risk assessment. The fuzzy methodology is proposed in the area of flood disaster risk assessment to improve probability estimation. The purpose of the current study is to establish a fuzzy model to evaluate flood risk with incomplete data sets. The results of the example indicate that the methodology is effective and practical; thus, it has the potential to forecast the flood risk in flood risk management.

Description: Review of unprecedented ULF electromagnetic anomalous emissions possibly related to the Wenchuan M S = 8.0 earthquake, on 12 May 2008 Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 279-286, 2013 Author(s): M. Li, J. Lu, M. Parrot, H. Tan, Y. Chang, X. Zhang, and Y. Wang This work presents ground based ultra low frequency (ULF) electromagnetic field measurements in the frequency range 0.1–10 Hz from January 2007 to December 2008. In this time period a strong earthquake series hits the Wenchuan region with a main shock of magnitude M S = 8.0 on 12 May 2008. The Hebei ULF electromagnetic observation network includes eight observation stations in north China and the observation system named E-EM is employed to record the electric potential difference between two electrodes with an analog automatic real-time continuous pen recorder. First, weak electric signals appeared on 11 October 2007 at Ningjin station, most of which are with relative long periods ~0.4–3 s and unequal amplitudes ~0.5–20 mm. Then, similar signals appeared at Gaobeidian station at the end of October. Abnormal behavior with various time intervals appeared randomly and not every day. At the beginning of April 2008, one and a half months before the Wenchuan M S = 8.0 earthquake, the anomalies were gradually subject to an intensive increase mainly in Gaobeidian SN direction and Ningjin EW direction. The abnormal behavior appeared almost every day and the amplitudes of electric signals, with short periods of ~0.1–0.3 s, enhanced to ~3–30 mm. Qingxian station started to record marginally high frequency signals in SN and EW components in the middle of April. On 9 May, 3 days before the main shock, the amplitude of high frequency information increased sharply at the same time in two components at Gaobeidian station and the maximum amplitude was up to 70 mm, i.e. 1.3 mV m −1 for the electric field. This situation did not stop until 17 May, 5 days after the main event. However, this kind of climax phenomena did not happen at Ningjin station and Qingxian station. Then weak anomalous information lasted about four months again, and strong signals appeared again for a short time before several powerful aftershocks. It is the first time that an abnormity with so large an amplitude and so long a duration time in the observation history of this network though several strong earthquakes were recorded. Furthermore, no obvious interferences have been found during this period. So this event is possibly related to this shock although all these three stations are more than 1300 km away from the Wenchuan earthquake epicenter.

Description: An optimally tuned ensemble of the "eb_go_gs" configuration of GENIE: parameter sensitivity and bifurcations in the Atlantic overturning circulation Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 6, 925-956, 2013 Author(s): R. Marsh, A. Sóbester, E. E. Hart, K. I. C. Oliver, N. R. Edwards, and S. J. Cox The key physical parameters of the "eb_go_gs" configuration of GENIE, an Earth system Model of Intermediate Complexity (EMIC), are tuned using a multi-objective genetic algorithm. An ensemble of 90 parameter sets is tuned using two ocean and two atmospheric state variables as targets. These are "Pareto-optimal", representing a range of trade-offs between the four tuning targets. For the leading five parameter sets, simulations are further evaluated alongside a simulation with untuned "default" parameters, comparing selected variables and diagnostics that describe the state of the atmosphere, ocean and sea ice. One of these parameter sets is selected for further analysis of the objective function (error) landscape in the vicinity of its tuned values. "Cliffs" along some dimensions motivate closer inspection of corresponding variations in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). This reveals that bifurcations in the AMOC are highly sensitive to parameters that are not commonly associated with MOC stability. Specifically, the state of the AMOC is sensitive to parameters governing the wind-driven circulation and atmospheric heat transport. Five optimal parameter sets are recommended for future use of GENIE in the configuration presented here.

Description: Combining criteria for delineating lahar- and flash-flood-prone hazard and risk zones for the city of Arequipa, Peru Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 339-360, 2013 Author(s): J.-C. Thouret, G. Enjolras, K. Martelli, O. Santoni, J. A. Luque, M. Nagata, A. Arguedas, and L. Macedo Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru, is exposed to many natural hazards, most notably earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, lahars (volcanic debris flows), and flash floods. Of these, lahars and flash floods, triggered by occasional torrential rainfall, pose the most frequently occurring hazards that can affect the city and its environs, in particular the areas containing low-income neighbourhoods. This paper presents and discusses criteria for delineating areas prone to flash flood and lahar hazards, which are localized along the usually dry (except for the rainy season) ravines and channels of the Río Chili and its tributaries that dissect the city. Our risk-evaluation study is based mostly on field surveys and mapping, but we also took into account quality and structural integrity of buildings, available socio-economic data, and information gained from interviews with risk-managers officials. In our evaluation of the vulnerability of various parts of the city, in addition to geological and physical parameters, we also took into account selected socio-economic parameters, such as the educational and poverty level of the population, unemployment figures, and population density. In addition, we utilized a criterion of the "isolation factor", based on distances to access emergency resources (hospitals, shelters or safety areas, and water) in each city block. By combining the hazard, vulnerability and exposure criteria, we produced detailed risk-zone maps at the city-block scale, covering the whole city of Arequipa and adjacent suburbs. Not surprisingly, these maps show that the areas at high risk coincide with blocks or districts with populations at low socio-economic levels. Inhabitants at greatest risk are the poor recent immigrants from rural areas who live in unauthorized settlements in the outskirts of the city in the upper parts of the valleys. Such settlements are highly exposed to natural hazards and have little access to vital resources. Our study provides good rationale for the risk zoning of the city, which in turn may be used as an educational tool for better understanding the potential effects of natural hazards and the exposure of the population residing in and around Arequipa. We hope that our work and the risk-zonation maps will provide the impetus and basis for risk-management authorities of the Municipality and the regional government of Arequipa to enforce existing regulations in building in hazardous zones and to adopt an effective long-term strategy to reduce risks from lahar, flash flood, and other natural hazards.

Description: Palynological evidence for gradual vegetation and climate changes during the African Humid Period termination at 13°N from a Mega-Lake Chad sedimentary sequence Climate of the Past, 9, 223-241, 2013 Author(s): P. G. C. Amaral, A. Vincens, J. Guiot, G. Buchet, P. Deschamps, J.-C. Doumnang, and F. Sylvestre Located at the transition between the Saharan and Sahelian zones, at the center of one of the largest endorheic basins, Lake Chad is ideally located to record regional environmental changes that occurred in the past. However, until now, no Holocene archive was directly cored in this lake. In this paper, we present pollen data from the first sedimentary sequence collected in Lake Chad (13° N; 14° E; Sahel region). Dated between ca. 6700 and ca. 5000 cal yr BP, this record is continuous and encompasses part of the termination of the African Humid Period (AHP). Vegetation reconstructions are based on standard analyses of pollen diagrams and are strengthened by quantitative approaches. Potential biomes are reconstructed using the biomization method and mean annual precipitation ( P ann ) is estimated using the modern analogues technique. Results show that, between ca. 6700 and ca. 6050 cal yr BP, a vegetation close to humid woodland or humid savanna, including elements currently found further southward, thrived in the vicinity of the Mega-Lake Chad in place of the modern dry woodland, steppe and desert vegetation. At the same time, montane forest populations extended further southward on the Adamawa Plateau. The high abundance of lowland humid pollen taxa, particularly of Uapaca , is interpreted as the result of a northward migration of the corresponding plants during the AHP. This preferential zonal occurrence of these taxa in Lake Chad Basin (LCB) (rather than extrazonal) is driven by more humid local and regional climate conditions at this latitude, as shown by mean P ann estimated values of ca. 800 (−400/+700) mm during this period. However, we cannot rule out that an increase of the Chari–Logone inputs into the Mega-Lake Chad might have also contributed to control the abundance of these taxa. Changes in the structure and floristic composition of the vegetation towards more open and drier formations occurred after ca. 6050 cal yr BP, following a decrease in mean P ann estimates to approximately 600 (−230/+600) mm. But, the constant significant presence of lowland humid taxa until ca. 5000 cal yr BP, contemporaneous with a slight increase in steppic taxa, demonstrates that at this date, the modern vegetation was not yet established in the vicinity of Lake Chad. Our data indicate that between ca. 6700 and ca. 5000 cal yr BP vegetation and climate changes must have occurred progressively, but that century-scale climate variability was superimposed on this long-term mid-Holocene drying trend as observed around ca. 6300 cal yr BP, where pollen data indicate more humid conditions.

Description: What could have caused pre-industrial biomass burning emissions to exceed current rates? Climate of the Past, 9, 289-306, 2013 Author(s): G. R. van der Werf, W. Peters, T. T. van Leeuwen, and L. Giglio Recent studies based on trace gas mixing ratios in ice cores and charcoal data indicate that biomass burning emissions over the past millennium exceeded contemporary emissions by up to a factor of 4 for certain time periods. This is surprising because various sources of biomass burning are linked with population density, which has increased over the past centuries. We have analysed how emissions from several landscape biomass burning sources could have fluctuated to yield emissions that are in correspondence with recent results based on ice core mixing ratios of carbon monoxide (CO) and its isotopic signature measured at South Pole station (SPO). Based on estimates of contemporary landscape fire emissions and the TM5 chemical transport model driven by present-day atmospheric transport and OH concentrations, we found that CO mixing ratios at SPO are more sensitive to emissions from South America and Australia than from Africa, and are relatively insensitive to emissions from the Northern Hemisphere. We then explored how various landscape biomass burning sources may have varied over the past centuries and what the resulting emissions and corresponding CO mixing ratio at SPO would be, using population density variations to reconstruct sources driven by humans (e.g., fuelwood burning) and a new model to relate savanna emissions to changes in fire return times. We found that to match the observed ice core CO data, all savannas in the Southern Hemisphere had to burn annually, or bi-annually in combination with deforestation and slash and burn agriculture exceeding current levels, despite much lower population densities and lack of machinery to aid the deforestation process. While possible, these scenarios are unlikely and in conflict with current literature. However, we do show the large potential for increased emissions from savannas in a pre-industrial world. This is mainly because in the past, fuel beds were probably less fragmented compared to the current situation; satellite data indicates that the majority of savannas have not burned in the past 10 yr, even in Africa, which is considered "the burning continent". Although we have not considered increased charcoal burning or changes in OH concentrations as potential causes for the elevated CO concentrations found at SPO, it is unlikely they can explain the large increase found in the CO concentrations in ice core data. Confirmation of the CO ice core data would therefore call for radical new thinking about causes of variable global fire rates over recent centuries.

Description: Analyzing resilience of urban networks: a preliminary step towards more flood resilient cities Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 221-230, 2013 Author(s): S. Lhomme, D. Serre, Y. Diab, and R. Laganier In Europe, river floods have been increasing in frequency and severity. These circumstances require the management of flood risk by integrating new concepts like urban resilience. Nevertheless, urban resilience seems to have no accurate meanings. That is why researchers are primarily concerned with defining resilience. Nevertheless, focus on research object seems to be more important than focus on conceptual debate (Resilience of what? Rather than what is resilience?). Thus the methodology designed here is focused on urban considerations. In fact, a system approach emphasizes technical networks' importance concerning urban resilience. Principles and assumptions applied in this research finally lead to the analysis of how urban networks are able to face natural hazards. In this context, a Web-GIS has been developed for analyzing resistance capacity, absorption capacity and recovery capacity of different technical networks. A first application has been carried out on a French agglomeration in order to analyze road network absorption capacity. This application is very specific but, thanks to this example, it is already possible to highlight the methodology's usefulness.

Description: Effect of heterogeneities on evaluating earthquake triggering of volcanic eruptions Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 231-237, 2013 Author(s): J. Takekawa, H. Mikada, and T. Goto Recent researches have indicated coupling between volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Some of them calculated static stress transfer in subsurface induced by the occurrences of earthquakes. Most of their analyses ignored the spatial heterogeneity in subsurface, or only took into account the rigidity layering in the crust. On the other hand, a smaller scale heterogeneity of around hundreds of meters has been suggested by geophysical investigations. It is difficult to reflect that kind of heterogeneity in analysis models because accurate distributions of fluctuation are not well understood in many cases. Thus, the effect of the ignorance of the smaller scale heterogeneity on evaluating the earthquake triggering of volcanic eruptions is also not well understood. In the present study, we investigate the influence of the assumption of homogeneity on evaluating earthquake triggering of volcanic eruptions using finite element simulations. The crust is treated as a stochastic media with different heterogeneous parameters (correlation length and magnitude of velocity perturbation) in our simulations. We adopt exponential and von Karman functions as spatial auto-correlation functions (ACF). In all our simulation results, the ignorance of the smaller scale heterogeneity leads to underestimation of the failure pressure around a chamber wall, which relates to dyke initiation. The magnitude of the velocity perturbation has a larger effect on the tensile failure at the chamber wall than the difference of the ACF and the correlation length. The maximum effect on the failure pressure in all our simulations is about twice larger than that in the homogeneous case. This indicates that the estimation of the earthquake triggering due to static stress transfer should take account of the heterogeneity of around hundreds of meters.

Description: Modelling long-term fire occurrence factors in Spain by accounting for local variations with geographically weighted regression Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 311-327, 2013 Author(s): J. Martínez-Fernández, E. Chuvieco, and N. Koutsias Humans are responsible for most forest fires in Europe, but anthropogenic factors behind these events are still poorly understood. We tried to identify the driving factors of human-caused fire occurrence in Spain by applying two different statistical approaches. Firstly, assuming stationary processes for the whole country, we created models based on multiple linear regression and binary logistic regression to find factors associated with fire density and fire presence, respectively. Secondly, we used geographically weighted regression (GWR) to better understand and explore the local and regional variations of those factors behind human-caused fire occurrence. The number of human-caused fires occurring within a 25-yr period (1983–2007) was computed for each of the 7638 Spanish mainland municipalities, creating a binary variable (fire/no fire) to develop logistic models, and a continuous variable (fire density) to build standard linear regression models. A total of 383 657 fires were registered in the study dataset. The binary logistic model, which estimates the probability of having/not having a fire, successfully classified 76.4% of the total observations, while the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model explained 53% of the variation of the fire density patterns (adjusted R 2 = 0.53). Both approaches confirmed, in addition to forest and climatic variables, the importance of variables related with agrarian activities, land abandonment, rural population exodus and developmental processes as underlying factors of fire occurrence. For the GWR approach, the explanatory power of the GW linear model for fire density using an adaptive bandwidth increased from 53% to 67%, while for the GW logistic model the correctly classified observations improved only slightly, from 76.4% to 78.4%, but significantly according to the corrected Akaike Information Criterion (AIC c ), from 3451.19 to 3321.19. The results from GWR indicated a significant spatial variation in the local parameter estimates for all the variables and an important reduction of the autocorrelation in the residuals of the GW linear model. Despite the fitting improvement of local models, GW regression, more than an alternative to "global" or traditional regression modelling, seems to be a valuable complement to explore the non-stationary relationships between the response variable and the explanatory variables. The synergy of global and local modelling provides insights into fire management and policy and helps further our understanding of the fire problem over large areas while at the same time recognizing its local character.

Description: Landslide susceptibility assessment by using a neuro-fuzzy model: a case study in the Rupestrian heritage rich area of Matera Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 395-407, 2013 Author(s): F. Sdao, D. S. Lioi, S. Pascale, D. Caniani, and I. M. Mancini The complete assessment of landslide susceptibility needs uniformly distributed detailed information on the territory. This information, which is related to the temporal occurrence of landslide phenomena and their causes, is often fragmented and heterogeneous. The present study evaluates the landslide susceptibility map of the Natural Archaeological Park of Matera (Southern Italy) (Sassi and area Rupestrian Churches sites). The assessment of the degree of "spatial hazard" or "susceptibility" was carried out by the spatial prediction regardless of the return time of the events. The evaluation model for the susceptibility presented in this paper is very focused on the use of innovative techniques of artificial intelligence such as Neural Network, Fuzzy Logic and Neuro-fuzzy Network. The method described in this paper is a novel technique based on a neuro-fuzzy system. It is able to train data like neural network and it is able to shape and control uncertain and complex systems like a fuzzy system. This methodology allows us to derive susceptibility maps of the study area. These data are obtained from thematic maps representing the parameters responsible for the instability of the slopes. The parameters used in the analysis are: plan curvature, elevation (DEM), angle and aspect of the slope, lithology, fracture density, kinematic hazard index of planar and wedge sliding and toppling. Moreover, this method is characterized by the network training which uses a training matrix, consisting of input and output training data , which determine the landslide susceptibility. The neuro-fuzzy method was integrated to a sensitivity analysis in order to overcome the uncertainty linked to the used membership functions. The method was compared to the landslide inventory map and was validated by applying three methods: a ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic) analysis, a confusion matrix and a SCAI method. The developed neuro-fuzzy method showed a good performance in the determination of the landslide susceptibility map.

Description: A digital social network for rapid collection of earthquake disaster information Natural Hazards and Earth System Science, 13, 385-394, 2013 Author(s): J. H. Xu, G. Z. Nie, and X. Xu Acquiring disaster information quickly after an earthquake is crucial for disaster and emergency rescue management. This study examines a digital social network – an earthquake disaster information reporting network – for rapid collection of earthquake disaster information. Based on the network, the disaster information rapid collection method is expounded in this paper. The structure and components of the reporting network are introduced. Then the work principles of the reporting network are discussed, in which the rapid collection of disaster information is realised by using Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) messages to report the disaster information and Geographic information system (GIS) to analyse and extract useful disaster information. This study introduces some key technologies for the work principles, including the methods of mass sending and receiving of SMS for disaster management, the reporting network grouping management method, brief disaster information codes, and the GIS modelling of the reporting network. Finally, a city earthquake disaster information quick reporting system is developed and with the support of this system the reporting network obtained good results in a real earthquake and earthquake drills. This method is a semi-real time disaster information collection method which extends current SMS based method and meets the need of small and some moderate earthquakes.

Description: High-temperature thermomagnetic properties of vivianite nodules, Lake El'gygytgyn, Northeast Russia Climate of the Past, 9, 433-446, 2013 Author(s): P. S. Minyuk, T. V. Subbotnikova, L. L. Brown, and K. J. Murdock Vivianite, a hydrated iron phosphate, is abundant in sediments of Lake El'gygytgyn, located in the Anadyr Mountains of central Chukotka, northeastern Russia (67°30′ N, 172°05′ E). Magnetic measurements, including mass-specific low-field AC magnetic susceptibility, field-dependent magnetic susceptibility, hysteresis parameters, temperature dependence of the induced magnetization, as well as susceptibility in different heating media, provide ample information on vivianite nodules. Electron microprobe analyses, electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy were used to identify diagnostic minerals. Vivianite nodules are abundant in both sediments of cold (anoxic) and warm (oxic) stages. Magnetic susceptibility of the nodules varies from 0.78 × 10 −6 m 3 kg −1 to 1.72 × 10 −6 m 3 kg −1 (average = 1.05 × 10 −6 m 3 kg −1 ) and is higher than the susceptibility of sediments from the cold intervals. Magnetic properties of vivianite are due to the respective product of oxidation as well as sediment and mineral inclusions. Three types of curves for high-temperature dependent susceptibility of vivianite indicate different degrees of oxidation and inclusions in the nodules. Vivianite acts as a reductant and reduces hematite to magnetite and masks the goethite–hematite transition during heating. Heating vivianite and sulfur mixtures stimulates the formation of monoclinic pyrrhotite. An additive of arsenic inhibits the formation of magnetite prior to its Curie temperature. Heating selective vivianite and pyrite mixtures leads to formation of several different minerals – magnetite, monoclinic pyrrhotite, and hexagonal pyrrhotite, and makes it difficult to interpret the thermomagnetic curves.

Description: Large-scale features of Pliocene climate: results from the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project Climate of the Past, 9, 191-209, 2013 Author(s): A. M. Haywood, D. J. Hill, A. M. Dolan, B. L. Otto-Bliesner, F. Bragg, W.-L. Chan, M. A. Chandler, C. Contoux, H. J. Dowsett, A. Jost, Y. Kamae, G. Lohmann, D. J. Lunt, A. Abe-Ouchi, S. J. Pickering, G. Ramstein, N. A. Rosenbloom, U. Salzmann, L. Sohl, C. Stepanek, H. Ueda, Q. Yan, and Z. Zhang Climate and environments of the mid-Pliocene warm period (3.264 to 3.025 Ma) have been extensively studied. Whilst numerical models have shed light on the nature of climate at the time, uncertainties in their predictions have not been systematically examined. The Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project quantifies uncertainties in model outputs through a coordinated multi-model and multi-model/data intercomparison. Whilst commonalities in model outputs for the Pliocene are clearly evident, we show substantial variation in the sensitivity of models to the implementation of Pliocene boundary conditions. Models appear able to reproduce many regional changes in temperature reconstructed from geological proxies. However, data/model comparison highlights that models potentially underestimate polar amplification. To assert this conclusion with greater confidence, limitations in the time-averaged proxy data currently available must be addressed. Furthermore, sensitivity tests exploring the known unknowns in modelling Pliocene climate specifically relevant to the high latitudes are essential (e.g. palaeogeography, gateways, orbital forcing and trace gasses). Estimates of longer-term sensitivity to CO 2 (also known as Earth System Sensitivity; ESS), support previous work suggesting that ESS is greater than Climate Sensitivity (CS), and suggest that the ratio of ESS to CS is between 1 and 2, with a "best" estimate of 1.5.

Description: Response of methane emissions from wetlands to the Last Glacial Maximum and an idealized Dansgaard–Oeschger climate event: insights from two models of different complexity Climate of the Past, 9, 149-171, 2013 Author(s): B. Ringeval, P. O. Hopcroft, P. J. Valdes, P. Ciais, G. Ramstein, A. J. Dolman, and M. Kageyama The role of different sources and sinks of CH 4 in changes in atmospheric methane ([CH 4 ]) concentration during the last 100 000 yr is still not fully understood. In particular, the magnitude of the change in wetland CH 4 emissions at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) relative to the pre-industrial period (PI), as well as during abrupt climatic warming or Dansgaard–Oeschger (D–O) events of the last glacial period, is largely unconstrained. In the present study, we aim to understand the uncertainties related to the parameterization of the wetland CH 4 emission models relevant to these time periods by using two wetland models of different complexity (SDGVM and ORCHIDEE). These models have been forced by identical climate fields from low-resolution coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation model (FAMOUS) simulations of these time periods. Both emission models simulate a large decrease in emissions during LGM in comparison to PI consistent with ice core observations and previous modelling studies. The global reduction is much larger in ORCHIDEE than in SDGVM (respectively −67 and −46%), and whilst the differences can be partially explained by different model sensitivities to temperature, the major reason for spatial differences between the models is the inclusion of freezing of soil water in ORCHIDEE and the resultant impact on methanogenesis substrate availability in boreal regions. Besides, a sensitivity test performed with ORCHIDEE in which the methanogenesis substrate sensitivity to the precipitations is modified to be more realistic gives a LGM reduction of −36%. The range of the global LGM decrease is still prone to uncertainty, and here we underline its sensitivity to different process parameterizations. Over the course of an idealized D–O warming, the magnitude of the change in wetland CH 4 emissions simulated by the two models at global scale is very similar at around 15 Tg yr −1 , but this is only around 25% of the ice-core measured changes in [CH 4 ]. The two models do show regional differences in emission sensitivity to climate with much larger magnitudes of northern and southern tropical anomalies in ORCHIDEE. However, the simulated northern and southern tropical anomalies partially compensate each other in both models limiting the net flux change. Future work may need to consider the inclusion of more detailed wetland processes (e.g. linked to permafrost or tropical floodplains), other non-wetland CH 4 sources or different patterns of D–O climate change in order to be able to reconcile emission estimates with the ice-core data for rapid CH 4 events.

Description: Tephrostratigraphic studies on a sediment core from Lake Prespa in the Balkans Climate of the Past, 9, 267-287, 2013 Author(s): M. Damaschke, R. Sulpizio, G. Zanchetta, B. Wagner, A. Böhm, N. Nowaczyk, J. Rethemeyer, and A. Hilgers A detailed tephrostratigraphic record, which dates back to Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5b (ca. 91 kyr), has been established from a 17.76 m long core (Co1215) from Lake Prespa (Macedonia, Albania and Greece). A total of eleven tephra and cryptotephra layers (PT0915-1 to PT0915-11) were identified, using XRF scanning, magnetic susceptibility measurements, and macro- and microscopic inspection of the sediments. The major element composition of glass shards and/or micro-pumice fragments indicates that the tephras and cryptotephras originate from the explosive volcanism of Italy. Eight tephra and cryptotephra layers were correlated with specific volcanic eruptions: the AD 512 eruption of Somma-Vesuvius (1438 cal yr BP), the Mercato eruption of Somma-Vesuvius (8890 ± 90 cal yr BP), the Tufi Biancastri/LN1-LN2 eruption of the Campi Flegrei (14 749 ± 523 cal yr BP and 15 551 ± 621 cal yr BP), the SMP1-e/Y-3 eruption of the Campi Flegrei (30 000–31 000 cal yr BP), the Campanian Ignimbrite/Y-5 eruption of the Campi Flegrei (39 280 ± 110 cal yr BP), the SMP1-a event of Ischia Island (around 44 000 cal yr BP) and the Green Tuff/Y-6 eruption of Pantelleria Island (around 45 000 cal yr BP). One tephra could be attributed to the volcanic activity of Mount Etna, but probably represents an unknown eruption at ca. 60 000 cal yr BP. Cryptotephras PT0915-6 and PT0915-10 remain unclassified so far, but according to the presented age-depth model these would have been deposited around 35 000 and 48 500 cal yr BP, respectively. Some of the tephras and cryptotephras are recognised for the first time in the Balkan region. The tephrostratigraphic work provides important information about ash dispersal and explosion patterns of source volcanoes and can be used to correlate and date geographically distant paleoenvironmental and archaeological archives in the central Mediterranean region. Moreover, the tephrostratigraphic work in combination with radiocarbon and electron spin resonance (ESR) dating is a precondition for paleoclimatic reconstructions inferred from the sediment succession Co1215.

Description: Tree-ring–based summer mean temperature variations in the Adamello–Presanella Group (Italian Central Alps), 1610–2008 AD Climate of the Past, 9, 211-221, 2013 Author(s): A. Coppola, G. Leonelli, M. C. Salvatore, M. Pelfini, and C. Baroni Climate records from remote mountain sites and for century-long periods are usually lacking for most continents and also for the European Alps. However, detailed reconstructions of climate parameters for pre-instrumental periods in mountain areas, suffering of glacial retreat caused by recent global warming, are needed in the view of a better comprehension of the environmental dynamics. We present here the first annually-resolved reconstruction of summer (JJA) mean temperature for the Adamello–Presanella Group (Central European Alps), one of the most glaciated mountain groups of the Italian Central Alps. The reconstruction has been based on four larch tree-ring width chronologies derived from living trees sampled in four valleys surrounding the Group. The reconstruction spans from 1610 to 2008 and the statistical verification of the reconstruction demonstrates the positive skill of the tree-ring dataset in tracking summer temperature variability also in the recent period.