Facility Strategic Plan: Climate Perspective

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Facility Strategic Plan Climate Perspective

• The climate is changing It is likely to
  continue to change!
• Need for a comprehensive climate observing
  system to monitor, understand and predict climate
  changes!

Team Junhong (June) Wang ATD Dave Parsons,
James Pinto, Jeff Stith, Mark Tschudi, Dave
Rogers, Jorgen Jensen NCAR/UCAR Dave Carlson,
Kevin Trenberth, External Judy Curry
(GeoTech), Steve Sherwood (Yale), Tony DelGenio
(NASA/GISS), Tony Reale (NOAA), Imke Durre
(NOAA/NCDC), Tom Peterson (NOAA/NCDC), Bill
Rossow (NASA/GISS)
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Outline

• Components of climate observing system
• General scientific requirements for climate
  observations
• Scientific and observational needs
• ATD contributions
• A list of Resources

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Components of climate observing system
Accurate Long-term Consistent
From GCOS-82 (2003)
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General scientific requirements for climate
observations

• Climate Change To characterize the state of the
  global climate system and its variability as they
  happen,
• Climate Forcing To monitor the forcing of the
  climate system (natural and anthropogenic),
• Climate Predictions To support the prediction of
  global climate change through providing initial
  states for climate models and validating/improving
  models through climate process observations,
• Regional Climate To project global climate
  change information down to regional and national
  scales,
• Climate Impacts To characterize extreme events
  important in impact assessment and adaptation,
  and to assess risk and vulnerability.

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Areas

• Upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UT/LS)
• Clouds
• Aerosols
• Regional impacts extreme events
• Polar/Cold Regions
• Ocean
• Global climate monitoring systems

The whole carbon cycle, Greenhouse gases, Water
cycle, Weather
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Upper Air (UT/LS)

• Scientific Needs
• To reconcile observations of global warming
  (surface versus atmos. obs),
• To assess and understand long-term changes of
  UT/LS humidity,
• To understand/model the evolution of cirrus
  clouds requiring highly accurate RH,
• To increase temporal/spatial coverage of
  meteorological data in the UT/LS.
• Observational Needs
• To develop reference radiosonde with accurate
  T/RH measurements in UT/LS,
• To explore GPS radio-occultation and ground-based
  GPS measurements,
• To improve satellite moisture retrievals in all
  conditions,
• To inter-compare and cross-validate satellite and
  radiosonde data, such as establishing satellite
  upper-air network (SUAN),
• To increase aircraft sounding profiles, such as
  dropsonde and UAV,
• To develop a satellite mission to measure winds
  using lidar (BAMS, 76, 869-888),
• To consider fleets of constant level balloons
  that can be tracked for winds.

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Clouds

• Scientific Needs
• The single largest uncertainty in determining
  the climate sensitivity to either natural or
  anthropogenic changes are clouds and their
  effects on radiation and their role in the
  hydrological cycle (IPCC, 2001)
• Cloud feedback It is unknown about the sign of
  cloud feedback with respect to the increase of
  greenhouse gases, its variations with time and
  space, its relation with indirect aerosol
  forcing, and its coupling to the surface.
• Cloud modeling Handling the physics and/or the
  parameterization of cloud in climate models
  remains a central difficulty.
• Observational needs
• To increase and improve observations of cloud
  vertical structure, cloud IWC/LWC, radiative
  heating and optical depth profiles and the
  distribution and geometry of clouds,
• To identify the phase of water substance to
  understand the life cycle of water substance in
  various regions,
• To provide accurate instantaneous information on
  the dynamic and thermodynamic state of the
  atmosphere around clouds, such as dropsondes to
  constrain large-scale advective tendencies,
• To develop and implement systems that will enable
  high-resolution monitoring of moisture and wind
  variations (especially vertical wind) helping
  understanding meso and convective-scale
  dynamics.

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Aerosols

• Scientific Needs
• To characterize the nature of aerosols, their
• radiative properties and interactions with
  chemistry,
• To quantify and understand aerosols indirect
• effects on clouds,
• To understand aerosol sources, sinks and
  transports.
• Observational needs
• To measure vertical profiles of aerosol number
  concentration and size by aerosol type,
• To identify the cloud active portion of the
  aerosol (e.g. Cloud Condensation Nuclei and Ice
  forming Nuclei), and to develop methods to
  measure and model (e.g. in climate models) the
  physical mechanisms governing the interactions of
  these cloud active nuclei with clouds,
• To develop techniques to monitor aerosol
  transport and mixing in the surface layer and
  over global scales,
• To consolidate baseline measurements and further
  develop a strategy to produce long-term
  homogeneous observations.

From NACIP
Get input from the NCAR Aerosol Program Research
Discussion series ????
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Regional impacts Extreme events

• Scientific Needs
• To better monitor extreme events on regional
  scales since they are likely to become more
  frequent as climate warms,
• To improve the assessment of the impact of
  climate change on regional/national scales,
• To improve understanding and projecting societal
  and ecosystem impacts.
• Observational needs
• To provide information on regional patterns of
  climate change, variability and extreme events,
  i.e. high-frequency (e.g., hourly for
  precipitation) and high-density climate
  observations,
• Drought monitoring high-frequency precipitation
  measurements, more rain measurements in regions
  of complex terrain and over individual and nested
  watershed areas to close water budget, and soil
  moisture/porosity measurements,
• To develop sensors/networks to monitor changes in
  land cover.

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Polar/Cold Regions

• Scientific Needs
• It is no known whether these changes (a decline
  in the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice in
  the summer and recent Arctic warming) reflect
  anthropogenic warming transmitted either from the
  atmosphere or the ocean or whether they mostly
  reflect a major mode of multi-decadal
  variability. (IPCC, 2001)
• To better assess the enhanced warming (already
  begun) predicted by GCMs in the polar regions
  (particularly the Arctic),
• To better understand the processes that impact
  the recession of the cryosphere (sea ice,
  glaciers, snow fields) in response to global
  warming,
• To monitor potential feedbacks which contribute
  to accelerated warming in polar regions including
  attendant decreases in sea ice albedo/extent,
  increases in methane emissions from thawing
  permafrost, changes in cloud properties and the
  impact in oceanic deepwater formation,
• To improve understanding and projection of
  societal and ecosystem impacts (which could be
  enormous).
• Observational needs
• To develop long term monitoring equipment capable
  of withstanding and performing harsh environment,
• To deploy UAVs to monitor remote regions of the
  globe with regularity,
• To increase involvement with SEARCH by augmenting
  their observing stations with improved or
  complimentary instrumentation or additional
  remote sites.

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Ocean

• To improve understanding of the ocean ecosystems
  and those processes that contribute to
  uncertainty in estimates of climate change a
  need for sustained support for remote wind,
  topography, sea-ice, SST and ocean-color
  measurements.
• To monitor heat and freshwater storage and
  transport, to test the ocean component in climate
  models, and for climate change detection and
  attribution a need for global deployment of the
  surface date-buoy array and of the Argo-gloat
  programme.
• To provide the climate-quality time series for
  model testing, climate change detection,
  calibration of air-sea flux estimates and
  technology development a need to establish a
  sparse network of global-ocean reference
  stations.
• To determine the nature of the global carbon
  cycle, for future scenario projections and for a
  full understanding of potential mitigation
  strategies a need for the measurement of the
  state and change of carbon sources and sinks in
  the ocean.
• To characterize ocean climate variability and
  change, provide a capacity for monitoring the
  oceanic uptake of heat, freshwater and carbon
  dioxide and improve the chances of early
  identification of abrupt climate change arising
  from deep ocean processes a need for
  measurements of the full-depth ocean, such as
  regular, full-depth ocean surveys and surface
  altimetry.

From GCOS-82 (2003)
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• Goal Promote an international comprehensive,
  coordinated and sustained Earth observation
  system.
• Results Established ad hoc Group on Earth
  Observations (GEO) to prepare a 10-year
  Implementation Plan that builds on existing
  systems and initiatives and sets the Tokyo
  ministerial in April or May 2004 and the 10-year
  plan for Brussels ministerial in late 2004.

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WMO Global Climate Observing System
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Ten Principles for Climate Monitoring (NRC, 199)
1. Management of Network Change Assess how and
the extent to which a proposed change could
influence the existing and future climatology. 2.
Parallel Testing Operate the old system
simultaneously with the replacement
system. 3. Metadata Fully document each
observing system and its operating procedures 4.
Data Quality and Continuity Assess data quality
and homogeneity as a part of routine
operation procedures. 5. Integrated
Environmental Assessment Anticipate the use of
data in the development of environmental
assessments. 6. Historical Significance
Maintain operation of observing systems that have
provided homogeneous datasets over a period
of many decades. 7. Complementary Data Give
the highest priority in the design and
implementation of new sites or instrumentation
within an observing system to data-poor
regions, poorly observed variables, regions
sensitive to change, and key measurements
with inadequate temporal resolution. 8. Climate
Requirements Give network designers, operators,
and instrument engineers climate
monitoring requirements at the outset of network
design. 9. Continuity of Purpose Maintain a
stable, long-term commitment to these
observations, and develop a clear transition plan
from serving research needs to serving
operational purposes. 10. Data and Metadata
Access Develop data management systems that
facilitate access, use, and interpretation of
data and products by users.
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Climate Monitoring ATD roles

• To develop next generation of instrumentation
  for future climate observing networks, such as
  reference radiosonde development for future
  reference radiosonde network,
• To play a leading role in near-real time
  monitoring of the health of current or future
  climate observing networks,
• To assist operational centers for Management of
  network change, parallel testing and others,
• To hasten technological transfer from research
  observations to operational or sustained
  observations,
• To establish to test in situ instrumentation in
  realistic simulations of a testing facility
  environment, which might be a real assist in the
  climate community's evaluation of instrumentation
  deployed for climate networks.

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ATD contributions

• Long term climate monitoring (see previous one)
• Climate modeling
• Intensive measurements (field experiments) to
  gain observations in support of parameterization
  for climate models,
• Using field experiment data to validate climate
  models.
• Clouds/Aerosols Airborne in-situ sensors,
  passive remote sensing (AIMR/MCR) on HIAPER,
• Satellite Satellite validations and development
  of future satellite sensors,
• Ocean Multispectral remote sensing instruments
  on HIAPER for high-resolution sea-ice
  (VIS/IR/thermal), SST (thermal) and ocean color
  (VIS/IR).
• ????

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Resource lists

• IPCC, 2001
• The second report on the adequacy of the global
  observing systems for climate in support of the
  UNFCC, 2003 (GCOS-82)
• Status report on the key climate variables,
  2003 (GCOS-82)
• The need for a systems approach to climate
  observations (Trenberth et al. 2003)
• Adequacy of climate observing systems, 1999
  (NRC)
• Reconciling observations of global temperature
  change, 2000 (NRC)
• Strategic Plan for the U.S. Climate Change
  Science Program on http//www.climatescience.gov/d
  efault.htm/
• Earth Observation Summit on http//www.earthobserv
  ationsummit.gov/
• GEO on http//earthobservations.org/
• National Aerosol-Climate Interaction Program
  (NACIP) on http//www-NACIP.ucsd.edu/
• .