Components of CEOPRegional climate foci

State of the Implementation Planning of theHigh Elevation Working Group

Gianni Tartari1,2 and Elisa Vuillermoz1

1Ev-K²-CNR Committee, Bergamo&

2National Research Council Water Research Institute, Brugherio, Milan, Italy

The Seventh International Implementation Planning Meeting  of the Coordinated Energy and Water Cycle Observations Project (CEOP) 

Bali, Indonesia 6–9 September 2007

Background

Mountains represent unique areas for the detection of climate change and the assess the related impacts (Barry, 1981) at a global level.

In mountain areas climate changes with height in relatively short horizontal distances, so does vegetation and hydrology (Whiteman, 2000).

25% of continental surfaces (Kapos et al., 2000) and about 26% of the world’s people resides within mountains or in the foothills of the mountains (Meybeck et al., 2001). 40% of global population lives in the watersheds of rivers originating in the planet’s different mountain ranges.

Background

Factors that differentiate the mountain climates:

Altitude is the most distinguishing and fundamental characteristic of mountain climates.

Continentality refers to the proximity of a particular region to an ocean.

Latitude refers to the tendency of orography to amplify some of the characteristics of tropical, mid-latitude and boreal climates.

Topography play key role in determining local climates, in particular due to the slope, aspect, and exposure of the surface to climatic elements.

…and more recently…

Aerosols, because they play a key role in conditioning the climatic elements in some high altitude areas (Himalaya, Karakorum?, Ande?, Alps, etc.) changing the physical and dynamical processes of the atmosphere.

Component of CEOP: High-Elevation

Acronym: HEStarting date: March 2007Expected end date: December 2010URL: http://www.CEOP-HE.org (in progress)

Chairs: Gianni Tartari

Definition:

High elevations are areas of the world characterized by low pressure where the climate is strongly influenced by continentality, latitude and topography.(to be complete!)

CEOP-HE is a Components of CEOP II “project of projects”, implemented as a component of the regional foci. HE would be a concerted, international and interdisciplinary effort to further the knowledge of the physical and dynamical processes in high altitude areas of the world.

The main purposes of HE:

1. individuate the high altitude monitoring stations and establish a geographically and well spatially distributed network of reference stations within CEOP II;

2. establish a coordinated activity between the high altitude climatic stations to address the data to GEOSS strategy and share to the scientific community;

3. provide QA/QC protocols for high altitude sites installation and for data representativeness;

4. contribute to the understanding of water and energy cycles in high elevation regions and study their role within the climate system by means of globally integrated analysis of CEOP reference sites data, remote sensing observations, models analysis etc.;

5. build synergies between meteorological-climate and hydrological studies in order to improve the management of water resources;

6. improve the forecast capabilities of extreme weather events in high altitudes;

7. contribute to the capacity building of the mountain population to manage the water cycle and prevent the social consequences of climatic change.

• HE Observation sites

• HE Climatology

• HE Models (i.e. RCM, MCM)

• HE Aerosols climate interaction

• HE Water cycle

• HE Geographical Areas (4-5 experts)

• HE Data QA/QC

Structure of HE

To manage the HE Working Group activities, it has been individuated some principal key-issues for the start-up. Each issues will be coordinate by specific experts.

Coordination Office of HE

The Coordination Office of CEOP-High Elevation has been individuated at the EvK2CNR seat in Bergamo, Italy (CEOP-HE@evk2cnr.org) and the contact person is Elisa Vuillermoz

Control Run

Mean Moisture Flux

Reduced SM Experiment

Anomalies with respect to control

Cross section of the Moisture Flux

A deeper boundary layer (higher top) that in turn has associated a higher LLJ; together with the reduction in atmospheric moisture content, a reduction of the convergence of moisture flux is observed.

Curtesey of: H. Berbery, University of Maryland

The northeastern part

of Brazil,

which does not have precipita

tion,

has consistently a large divergence of moisture flu

x (negative

values). The moisture flu

x convergence field near

mountains

exhibits a distorte

d pattern typical

of all

models and their

difficultie

s to resolve the circulatio

n near the steep Andes

Mountains.

Ref.: Collin

i, Berbery, B

arros &

Pyle. (

In press). How does S

oil Moisture In

fluence th

e

Early Stages of th

e South American M

onsoon?

The Elevated Heat Pump (EHP) hypothesis (Lau et al. 2006, Lau and Kim 2006)

Warm

Wwarm

Normal monsoonWater cycle (mid-May to mid-June)

e

Warmer

Cool

Warm

W

EHP-accelerated Monsoon water cycle(mid-May –June)

e

EHP postulates: a) warming and moistening of the upper troposphere over the Tibetan Plateaub) an advance of the rainy season in northern India/Napal region in May-Junec) In June-July, the increased convection spreads from the foothills of the Himalayas

to central India, resulting in an intensification of the Indian monsoon.

Curtsey of: W. K. M. Lau, Laboratory for Atmospheres, NASA/GSFC

1) Direct pressure(elements that have a direct influence on HE site)

AEROSOL

(Direct influenceon local climate)

MAHASRI

(Direct influence of monsoon climate)

EXTREMES

(Hydrogeological sensitivity of HE

regions

CEOP-HE Interactions with other CEOP elements

2) Factors(elements that characterize HE region)

SARS

(HE region have often aridconditions)

WEBS

(Importance of HE regions in hydrological balance study)

3) Case study(representative of HE conditions)

CPPA

(North America

mountains study)

4) Crosscutting study(WG that are related to all the others)

MAC

(Modellinganalysis)

1) Direct pressure(elements that have a direct influence on HE site)

AEROSOL

(Direct influenceon local climate)

MAHASRI

(Direct influence of monsoon climate)

EXTREMES

(Hydrogeological sensitivity of HE

regions

1) Direct pressure(elements that have a direct influence on HE site)

AEROSOL

(Direct influenceon local climate)

MAHASRI

(Direct influence of monsoon climate)

EXTREMES

(Hydrogeological sensitivity of HE

regions

CEOP-HE Interactions with other CEOP elements

2) Factors(elements that characterize HE region)

SARS

(HE region have often aridconditions)

WEBS

(Importance of HE regions in hydrological balance study)

3) Case study(representative of HE conditions)

CPPA

(North America

mountains study)

4) Crosscutting study(WG that are related to all the others)

MAC

(Modellinganalysis)

CEOP-HE Interactions with other CEOP elements

2) Factors(elements that characterize HE region)

SARS

(HE region have often aridconditions)

WEBS

(Importance of HE regions in hydrological balance study)

2) Factors(elements that characterize HE region)

SARS

(HE region have often aridconditions)

WEBS

(Importance of HE regions in hydrological balance study)

3) Case study(representative of HE conditions)

CPPA

(North America

mountains study)

4) Crosscutting study(WG that are related to all the others)

MAC

(Modellinganalysis)

4) Crosscutting study(WG that are related to all the others)

MAC

(Modellinganalysis)

Working group Themes

CPPA (Climate Prediction Program for the

Americas)

North American Monsoon Experiment (MAME) Western Mountains studies Regional field experiment to understand Mountain and Cold Season processes (Mountain 2009-

2010)

WEBS (Water and Energy Budget Synthesis)

Identify and focus on region where water cycle simulation has trouble (overlap with semi-arid and cold region studies)

Examine the vertical profiles of water cycle exchanges Regional hydroclimate hotspot studies in Tibet (2008-2010)

EXTREMES Understanding occurrence, evolution and role of extreme events (e.g. heavy precipitation,

flooding, changes in phasing of events such as rain and snow in mountains) within climate system

AEROSOLS

To unravel the effects of natural and anthropogenic aerosols on the monsoon water cycle and their interaction

To provide better understandings of the mechanisms of extreme events that affects water availability in monsoon regions

JAMEX (Joint Aerosol-Monsoon Experiment)

MAHASRI (Monsoon Asian Hydro-Atmosphere Scientific Research and Prediction

Initiative)

Monsoon system study Cold region study, in particular, over the Tibetan Plateau Impact of orography on hydroclimate in Asia is surveyed

MAC (Multi-Model Analysis for CEOP)

MAC data set should be useful to other CEOP science activities, such as WEBS, Semi-Arid Regions and Extremes. The MAC data will be a simplified set of physical parameters and their range across the contributing models. This should contribute to understanding the level of uncertainty to model analyses for these projects.

SARS (Semi-arid Region Study)

Development of potential mechanism to work with RHPs, cross cuttings… Atmospheric boundary layer physics and dynamics of semi-arid regions; Impacts of dust aerosols on hydrological cycle and climate at regional and global scales

INTERACTIONS OF HIGH ELEVATION WITH OTHER CEOP-COMPONENTS

Cold regions ???

Interactions and contributions SHARE/HE

SHARE (Stations at High Altitude for Research on the Environment) is a multidisciplinary project of EvK2CNR Committee, that includes several research in the field of environmental and earth sciences, addressed to high elevation mountains of the world.

SHARE could give its contribution in the understanding of water and energy cycle processes in that areas and in studying their role within climate system, thanks also the direct involvement of local decision makers and research institutes in different part of the World (Central Asia, Africa).

SHARE has a long (20 yrs) experience in the installation and management of an high altitude monitoring network in Himalaya (6 AWSs), Karakorum (2 AWSs) and Ruwenzori, Africa (1 AWS) and also it supports some monitoring observatories in Alps.

The EvK2CNR Committee considers as fundamental opportunity to coordinate the CEOP-HE.

Meteorological conditions: wind, temperature and relative humidity

Monsoon

Post-Monsoon

Pre-monsoon

Dry season

Meteorology at the NCO-P site is driven by mountain/valley

breeze regimeexcept during

summer monsoon

MonsoonPre-monsoonPost

MonsoonDry

season

Pyramid Laboratory-Observatory, 5079 mKhumbu Valley, Mt. Everest Region, Nepal

2006-2007 measurement: PM, BC and particles number

Local dust is present and constitute a large fraction of particle mass. However, very elevated levels of PM1 are measured during the afternoon, especially during pre-monsoon season.

The background values are very low (<1µg m-3)

The site is characterized by high variability of particle number concentration, from a few hundreds (background during the night) up to several thousands part. cm-3 (> 20000 # cm-3 on a min average !!).

Pyramid Laboratory-Observatory, 5079 mKhumbu Valley, Mt. Everest Region, Nepal

CEOP-HE activities planned within the end of 2007

• Preliminary collection of information on high altitude monitoring sites (i.e. ClimATlas, Axel Thomas, Mainz University; GAW database, etc.);

• Contact the experts to complete the scientific board of HE;

• Establish the date of First High Elevation Expert Meeting to complete the discussion on scientific rationale and final contribution to CEOP SIP;

• Start to contacts national and international institutions to built a HE database and ;

General informationName referring/contact person/sAffiliationAddress, Ph., FaxE-mail

Measurement site information2.a Geographic informationCountryRegionMountain area/chain

CEOP Project – Working Group High ElevationIdentification of ”potential” Reference Stations of HE Network

2.d Indication of potential CEOP reference siteUniquenessRepresentativeness…

Maintenance protocolsMetadata featuresData useData policyMaps and picturesAvailable documentationsOther information

2.c General description of the area

Site 1)NameGeographic coordinatesElevationDate of installationDirect or remote surveillancePerformed measurementCharacteristics of the instrumentation

Site 2)…

2.b General description of the areaOrographic featuresSoil characteristicVegetation coverLand useAccessibility…

Questionnaire

Thanks

Coordination group:

• HE Climatology Kenichi Ueno, Tsukuba University, JapanYaoming Ma, Institute of the Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bejing, China

• HE Observation sites Elisa Vuillermoz, Ev-K²-CNR Committee, Bergamo, Italy

• HE Models Raffaele Salerno, Epson Meteo Center, Milan, Italy

• HE Aerosols Paolo Bonasoni, National Research Council-Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Bologna,

Italy• HE Water cycle Axel Thomas, Mainz University &

Institute of Geography, Justus Liebig University, Germany

• HE Areas expertsHimalyaKarakorumAlpsCaucasusAndesRock Mountains…