Abstracted/indexed

The study assesses the impacts of climate change on forest productivity in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. LPJ-GUESS was simulated from 1850–2100. In first approach, the model was compared with observational estimates. The comparison showed a moderate to weak agreement. In the second approach, the model was assessed for the temporal and spatial trends of net biome productivity and carbon pool. A reduction was found from 1951–2005 however, increase in both variables were predicted in 2100.

This study deals with leaf thermoregulation, a process that describes the ability of leaves to buffer against ambient temperatures. In the past, this effect has been investigated at the leaf scale, but not on the canopy or global scale. Here we try to close this scientific gap by studying the large-scale effect of leaf thermoregulation using the Max Planck Institute's Earth system model. We believe that our study provides valuable insights for modelers and observers.

Important equatorial climate phenomena such as QBO and ENSO (El Nino) have never been adequately explained as deterministic processes – that is exhibiting a behavior that may be predictable. This paper suggests that QBO, ENSO, along with the geophysical behavior known as the Chandler wobble may share a common origin of lunar and solar tidal forcing. Through analytical approximations of fluid dynamics and detailed time-series analysis, matching quantitative models of these behaviors can be shown.

Spectral nudging imposes the large scale fields from a global model into a regional model. We study which are the best scales on a tropical setting and how long is needed to run the model before it is in balance with the nudging force. Optimal results are obtained when nudging is applied in the Rossby Radius scales for at least 72 h to 96 h. We also propose a new method where a different scale is used for each nudged variable, which bests other configurations when applied in 4 hurricanes cases.

In our work, we employ complex networks to study the relation between the time mean position of the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) and sea surface temperature (SST) variability. We show that zonal mean network measures encode information hidden in spatial SST correlation pattern. Additionally, we confirm the global character of the ITCZ. This research contributes to the ongoing discussion on drivers of the annual migration of the ITCZ and proposes a new approach to analyze model output.

Deep Labrador Sea densities are receiving increasing attention because of their link with many of the processes that govern decadal climate oscillations in the North Atlantic, and their potential use as a precursor of those changes. This article explores those links and how they are represented in global climate models, documenting the main differences across models. Models are finally compared with observational products to identify the ones that reproduce the links more realistically.

This study downscales climate information from EURO-CORDEX (approx. 12 km) output to a higher horizontal resolution (approx. 3 km) for the south of France. We also propose a matrix of different indices to evaluate the high-resolution precipitation output. We find that a higher resolution reproduces more realistic extreme precipitation events in both daily and sub-daily time scales. Our results and approach are promising to apply to other Mediterranean regions and climate impact studies.

This paper presents a ruin model for trees, as a response to drought hazards. This model is inspired from a standard model of ruin in the insurance industry. We illustrate how ruin and the time of ruin can occur in present-day conditions and their sensitivity to hazard statistical properties. We also show how tree strategies to cope with hazard can affect their long time reserves and probability of ruin.

Improving the accuracy of regional sea-level projections is an important aim that will impact estimates of sea-level hazard around the globe. The computation of sea-level fingerprints is a key component of any such projection and, to date, these computations have been based on the assumption that elastic deformation accurately describes the solid Earth response on century time scales. We show here that this assumption is inaccurate in some regions characterised by low mantle viscosity.

The `climate sensitivity' is a key measure of how sensitive Earth's climate is to human release of greenhouse gasses, such as from fossil fuels. However, there is still uncertainty in the value of the climate sensitivity, in part because different climate feedbacks operate over multiple timescales. This study assesses hundreds of millions of climate simulations against historical observations to reduce uncertainty in climate sensitivity and future climate warming.

The state-of-the-art global climate models that contributed to the latest Coupled Model Intercomparison Project CMIP-6 show a robust increase in Indian Summer Monsoon rainfall. They furthermore show an increase in the year-to-year variability of this seasonal rainfall that crucially influences the livelihood of more than one billion people in India.

Higher temperatures influence both evaporation and snow processes. These two processes have a large effect on discharge, but have distinct roles during different seasons. In this study, we study how higher temperatures affect the discharge via changed evaporation and snow dynamics. Higher temperatures lead to enhanced evaporation but increased melt from glaciers, overall lowering the discharge. During the snow melt season, discharge was reduced further due to the earlier depletion of snow.

Motivated by a lacking onset prediction scheme, we examine the temporal evolution of synchronous heavy rainfall associated with the East Asian Monsoon System using a network approach. We find, that the evolution of the Baiu front is associated with the formation of a spatially separated double band of synchronous rainfall. Furthermore, we identify the South Asian Anticyclone and the North Pacific Subtropical High, which have been assumed independent previously, as the main drivers.