Atmospheric circulations and climate change

大气环流和气候变化

• 批准号: RGPIN-2014-05416
• 负责人: Merlis, Timothy
• 金额: $ 1.89万
• 依托单位: McGill University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2018-01-01 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=659639
• 关键词: Atmospheric; circulations; climate; change

Atmospheric circulations play a fundamental role in determining the climate of Earth. Under climate change scenarios, the atmospheric circulation mediates surface temperature and radiation changes. As a result, knowledge of the response of these circulations to changes in greenhouse gases and other radiative forcing agents is central to confident predictions of Earth's future climate. The atmospheric circulation is, in turn, affected by changes in temperature and radiation. The goal of this proposed research program is, therefore, to expose both the effects of climate change on the atmospheric circulation and the effects of changes in the atmospheric circulation on the other aspects of the climate. Specifically, this research program will address (i) the physical mechanisms underlying the sensitivity of the mean tropical atmospheric circulation to the radiative forcing of carbon dioxide, (ii) the interactions between the mean tropical circulation, atmospheric humidity and clouds, and the radiative heating that drives the circulation, and (iii) the effect of these mean circulation changes on extreme weather such as hurricanes. This research will use a hierarchy of climate models that explicitly simulate the fluid motion of the atmosphere and have representations of the hydrological cycle and radiation that range from simplified ones to those of comprehensive climate models. This approach of reducing the complexity of Earth's climate through simplifying the representations of processes within climate models allows the essential physical processes responsible for the changes in climate to be revealed. The physical mechanisms elucidated in the hierarchy of climate models will be validated by comparison to observations of Earth and will be used to analyze and interpret the projections of future climate prepared for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Thus, the research results will have implications for climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

大气循环在确定地球气候方面起着基本作用。在气候变化的情况下，大气循环介导表面温度和辐射变化。结果，了解这些循环对温室气体变化和其他辐射强迫剂的反应的了解对于对地球未来气候的自信预测至关重要。大气循环反过来又受温度和辐射变化的影响。因此，该提出的研究计划的目的是揭示气候变化对大气循环的影响以及大气循环变化对气候其他方面的影响。具体而言，该研究计划将解决（i）平均热带大气循环对二氧化碳辐射强迫的敏感性的背后的物理机制，（ii）平均热带循环，大气湿度和云的平均循环量和辐射加热之间的相互作用，以及驱动循环的循环和（iii）的效果，以及（iii）的效果，均具有极端的循环效果。 这项研究将使用气候模型的层次结构，这些模型明确模拟了大气的流体运动，并具有从简化到综合气候模型的水文循环和辐射的表示。这种方法通过简化气候模型中过程的表示来降低地球气候的复杂性，从而允许揭示气候变化的基本物理过程。通过比较地球观测，将验证气候模型层次结构中阐明的物理机制，并将用于分析和解释为联合国为气候变化跨政府间室内准备的未来气候的投影。因此，研究结果将对缓解气候变化和适应策略产生影响。