Climate dynamics

Abstract:

The closure of pipelines to tackle fuel-theft in central Mexico caused an unexpected fuel shortage that disrupted transport systems in Mexico City in January of 2019. Fuel sales in the Metropolitan Area and CO emissions from reanalysis showed a significant decrease during the fuel shortage of 7% and 6%, respectively. This study analyses the air quality and meteorological conditions during this period to evaluate whether these measures indirectly affected air quality in Mexico City. During the shortage, mean-ambient concentrations of nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) were significantly lower than normal whereas levels of particulate matter (PM) were only modestly lower than usual. Daily-mean NO and CO had record-low anomalies of −10 ppb and −0.5 ppm from typical days, respectively. In contrast, ozone mean-levels were not significantly different than average. The percentage of days with PM mean concentrations above the World Health Organisation guidelines (5 and 19% for particles smaller than 2.5 and 10 μm, respectively) and the percentage of ozone 8-h rolling means above Mexican law (0.5%) were record lows. Meteorological factors, such as wind speed or the mixed-layer height were not significantly different than average. The anomalously low pollution levels were accentuated when each day was compared to days of similar flow patterns. This episode of better than usual air quality showcases how strategies addressing transport emissions could control air quality in Mexico City and highlights that improving ozone mean levels require comprehensive strategies that reduce emissions from all sectors.

Abstract:

Summer 2018 was one of the driest and hottest experienced over northwestern Europe. In contrast, over southern Europe, it was marked by cooler and wetter conditions with flooding over Greece and Spain. This contrasting pattern was particularly enhanced over a 3‐week period starting on 21 June. Two atmospheric patterns are thought to have largely contributed to this anomalous weather: the positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO+) and a Wave‐7 pattern. Using linear regressions on detrended data, we show that the NAO+ was mainly responsible for the observed seasonal anomalies. However, during the 3‐week period, the rare combination of the NAO+ and Wave‐7 is necessary to explain the pattern of the observed anomalies. The global warming trend and, to a lesser extent, nonlinear processes are shown to have furthermore strongly modulated the anomalies associated with these two patterns.

Abstract:

Atlantic multidecadal variability (AMV) of sea surface temperature exhibits an important influence on the climate of surrounding continents. It remains unclear, however, the extent to which AMV is due to internal climate variability (e.g., ocean circulation variability) or changes in external forcing (e.g., volcanic/anthropogenic aerosols or greenhouse gases). Here, the sources of AMV are examined over a 340-yr period using proxy indices, instrumental data, and output from the Last Millennium Ensemble (LME) simulation. The proxy AMV closely follows the accumulated atmospheric forcing from the instrumental North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) reconstruction (r = 0.65)—an “internal” source of AMV. This result provides strong observational evidence that much of the AMV is generated through the oceanic response to atmospheric circulation forcing, as previously demonstrated in targeted modeling studies. In the LME there is a substantial externally forced AMV component, which exhibits a modest but significant correlation with the proxy AMV (i.e., r = 0.37), implying that at least 13% of the AMV is externally forced. In the LME simulations, however, the AMV response to accumulated NAO forcing is weaker than in the proxy/observational datasets. This weak response is possibly related to the decadal NAO variability, which is substantially weaker in the LME than in observations. The externally forced component in the proxy AMV is also related to the accumulated NAO forcing, unlike in the LME. This indicates that the external forcing is likely influencing the AMV through different mechanistic pathways: via changes in radiative forcing in the LME and via changes in atmospheric circulation in the observational/proxy record.