1 climate monitoring technical conference on changing climate and demands for climate services, 18...

1Climate Monitoring Technical Conference on Changing Climate and Demands for Climate Services, 18 February 2010, Antalya, Turkey

Climate System Monitoring and

Research Needs

Thomas C. PetersonChief Scientist, National Climatic Data Center, NOAA

Asheville, NC, USAand

Chair, OPAG on Monitoring and Analysis of Climate Variability and ChangeCommission for Climatology

World Meteorological Organization

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Outline

• State of the art in climate system monitoring• Research needs

– Essential Climate Variables– Turning data into Climate Data Records– The quest for more in situ data

• Key first step is increasing local understanding• Cross-border verification

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Climate Monitoring State

of the Art

• Annual review• 196 pages• 280 authors from• 42 countries• Peer-reviewed• Published in the

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

• NOAA/NCDC led with WMO collaboration

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Inclusive (new authors welcome)

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• Synthesizes many different sources of data

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• From the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean.

• Sections of dissolved inorganic carbon (μmol kg−1) nominally along 105°W in (top) 2008 and (middle) 1994. The bottom section shows the DICchange between the two cruises (2008–1994). Black dots show sample locations. Inset map shows cruise track in red.

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• Both long-term trends and detrended information.

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• Regional analyses

• Tropical storms in the Northern Indian Ocean

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• (a) Ozone hole area, 1979–2008.

• (b) Temperature at 50 hPa from 60° to 75°S during Sep 1979–2008. The vertical bars represent the range of values from the individual days of Sep.

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Research Needs

• Monitor all GCOS Essential Climate Variables

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GCOS ECVs

• Not all GCOS Essential Climate Variables are currently being monitored

BAMS State of the Climate 2008

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2010 Atmospheric ECVs(no changes)

• Surface– Air temperature, Wind speed and direction, Water

vapour, Pressure, Precipitation, Surface radiation budget.

• Upper-air– Temperature, Wind speed and direction, Water

vapour, Cloud properties, Earth radiation budget (including solar irradiance).

• Composition– Carbon dioxide, Methane, and other long-lived

greenhouse gases. Ozone and Aerosol, supported by their precursors

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2010 Oceanic ECVs

• Surface– Sea-surface temperature, Sea-surface salinity, Sea

level, Sea state, Sea ice, Surface current, Ocean colour (for biological activity), Carbon dioxide partial pressure, Ocean acidity

• Sub-surface– Temperature, Salinity, Current, Nutrients, Carbon,

Carbon dioxide partial pressure, Ocean acidity, Oxygen, Tracers, Phytoplankton; Marine biodiversity and habitat properties

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2010 Terrestrial ECVs

• River discharge, Water use, Ground water, Lakes, Snow cover, Glaciers and ice caps, Ice sheets, Permafrost, Albedo, Land cover (including vegetation type), Fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (fAPAR), Leaf area index (LAI), Above-ground biomass, Soil carbon, Fire disturbance, Soil moisture, Terrestrial biodiversity and habitat properties

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Research Needs

• Turning data into Climate Data Records

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Climate Monitoring• Not as simple as launching a satellite or exchanging

some data• Data must be rigorously quality controlled to account

for potential errors in data entry, transmission or instrument malfunction.

• Data must be processed to remove time-dependent biases– Such as the jump from one satellite to the next– Or changes in sea surface temperatures from ships to

buoys• Peer-reviewed article describing data set creation

approaches taken– But still no guarantee that it is accurate

• Helps to compare to other data sets

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Data set agreement

• Surface temperature data agree very well– With very different

approaches to address time-dependent biases

• Upper air data vary considerably– Both satellite and

radiosonde data– A measure of

structural uncertainty

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Research Needs

• Quest for more in situ data– Key first step is increasing local understanding

• Or data aren’t appreciated

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Global Historical Climatology Network-Monthly

• Greatest coverage during 1960s and 1970s

• Primarily relies on CLIMAT data for real-time updates

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Climate Extremes Workshops• Coordinated by the joint CCl/CLIVAR/JCOMM

Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices• Will be discussed shortly

• Hands-on teaching of data processing• Quality control, homogeneity testing

• Calculation of the indices• Analysis of how extremes are changing

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, September 2008

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Climate Extremes Workshops

• Key outcome: Increased appreciation for data

Daily Maximum TemperatureBerberati, Central African RepublicBefore Brazzaville WorkshopAfter Workshop

Aguilar et al., 2009

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Research Needs

• Quest for more in situ data– Cross-border verification

• Key step towards sharing data

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Sharing Indices and Data Behind Them

• Most countries released their indices• Thanks to the workshops

• Updating the indices is still a challenge.• Sharing the data themselves, necessary to

make the analyses reproducible, is still very limited

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Cross-border Analysis and Verification

• A key part of the process• Fostered by the annual State of

the Climate report• a) Annual mean temperature

anomalies for South America for 2008 (°C); (b) annual total precipitation anomalies (% normal).

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Summary

• Real-time global climate monitoring poses tremendous challenges.• But international collaboration is continually

improving our understanding of how the world’s climate is changing.

• New authors welcome for the BAMS State of the Climate report

• Society needs this information to help guide adaptation to climate change

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See www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-monitoringfor more information on climate monitoring, including pdfs of the annual Bulletin of the

American Meteorological Society’s State of the Climate