Dusty cloud radiative forcing derived from satellite data for middle latitude regions of East Asia

The dusty cloud radiative forcing over the middle latitude regions of East Asia was estimated by using the 2-year (July 2002?June 2004) data of collocated clouds and the Earth’s radiant energy system (CERES) scanner and moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) from Aqua Edition 1B SSF (single scanner footprint). The dusty cloud is defined as the cloud in dust storm environment or dust contaminated clouds. For clouds growing in the presence of dust, the instantaneous short-wave (SW) forcing at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) is about -275.7 W/m² for cloud over dust (COD) region. The clouds developing in no-dust cloud (CLD) regions yield the most negative short-wave (SW) forcing (-311.0 W/m²), which is about 12.8% stronger than those in COD regions. For long-wave (LW) radiative forcing, the no-dust cloud (CLD) is around 102.8 W/m², which is 20% less than the LW forcing from COD regions. The instantaneous TOA net radiative forcing for the CLD region is about -208.2 W/m², which is 42.1% larger than the values of COD regions. The existence of dust aerosols under clouds significantly reduces the cooling effect of clouds.     

基于CALIOP资料的中国及周边地区云出现概率时空分布特征分析

云垂直结构是影响大气辐射的重要参数,其时空分布是影响全球气候变化的关键组成部分.本文利用星载激光雷达CALIOP的1 km云层产品,计算了中国及周边地区（0-55°N,70-140°E）云的出现概率,对不同地区、不同季节、不同高度单层云的出现概率做了对比分析.结果表明：云的出现概率表现出明显的地区差异,蒙古高原和印度半岛北部少云,热带海域和中国南方多云,多数地区夜间云出现概率略高于白天;除蒙古高原和印度半岛北部以外,多数地区单层云比多层云更常见;多数地区高云占单层云的比例最大,而中国大陆南部单层的中云较常见,西太平洋北部海域常被单层的低云覆盖;夏秋两季云出现概率普遍大于春冬两季,尤其印度半岛北部的云主要出现在夏季;蒙古高原和印度半岛北部单层云少于多层云,冬季尤其明显,而中国西南地区东部全年单层云更常见;夏季单层的高云占全年单层云的比例最大,青藏高原部分地区超过35%,这与其地形特征和夏季对流活动旺盛有关.     

激光雷达对半干旱地区云层的观测

采用532 nm激光雷达在兰州的观测数据,根据计算得到的消光系数,分析了半干旱地区城区及乡村上层云的生消过程、云量分布、云的光学厚度.结果表明:半干旱地区云的分布有一定规律,中云春季所处的高度比冬季的高,厚度变化的振荡范围比高云的要大,平均光学厚度较高云的也略大.无论中云、高云,春季的厚度变化振荡范围都比冬季的要大.云形成的光学厚度占大气柱总光学厚度的比例为2.6%～99.3%,无明显的规律.订正模式需要进一步研究.     

基于三波长激光雷达对强卷云后向散射系数波长关系研究

针对高层强卷云(532 nm波长上衰减的后向散射系数比大于20)在全球中出现的概率高达30%,影响地球-大气系统的辐射收支平衡问题. 提出了一种用衰减的后向散射系数颜色比估算后向散射系数颜色比的反演方法,并分析了其误差大小. 基于10个月在合肥西郊上空3波长(1 064,532和355 nm)激光雷达探测到的强卷云数据,得到强卷云的3个后向散射系数颜色比统计分布规律,以及后向散射系数波长指数. 计算结果表明:强卷云的后向散射系数波长指数不再是一个固定不变的常数,而是与波长有关的变量.      

低纬高原雷电过程中FY-2云顶温度和水汽云图定量特征分析

 利用云南省地闪资料、FY-2E云顶亮温资料和水汽云图资料,定量分析2009、2010年低纬高原雷电过程中雷电与云顶温度、水汽云图特征得出：雷电产生在对流云团移动发展一侧的云顶温度梯度大值区,对于在原地发展、中心位置少动的对流云团,雷电产生在云顶温度低值中心附近,雷电产生区域的水汽温度低于-20℃;分析产生雷电频数较高的单站,雷电产生前水汽温度在-40℃左右,云顶温度在0℃附近,雷电产生期间前2~3h云顶温度和水汽温度为递减趋势.根据定量分析对流云团云顶温度和水汽温度的特征,可以确定雷电产生的位置及强度,进一步提高雷电的预警能力,同时根据雷电活动情况,也可以用来判别是否发生其它强对流天气.     

北京地区夏季云出现概率及云底高度分布的特征分析

研究北京地区2007-2009 年夏季8 km 高度以下云出现概率(探测到云的次数与总探测次数之比)及云出现概率在一天内的分布规律, 并研究三年中夏季单层云的云底高度分布规律, 典型对流云的云底高度特征, 以及对流云云底高度与地面相对湿度的关系。结果表明: 北京地区夏季云出现概率约为12%, 一天内云最容易出现在夜间, 下午较夜间云出现得少; 云底高度分布呈单峰, 最容易出现在700±50 m 高度, 低云(云底高度在3000 m 以下)出现次数占云总出现次数的82%; 典型对流云云底高度出现在400~2500 m 高度, 一天之内云底高度变化不大。利用绝热气团模型得到云底高度与地面相对湿度的线性关系, 并以此方便地给出对流云云底高度, 平均相对标准差为0.321。     

Contribution of cloud condensate to surface rainfall process

Contribution of cloud condensate to surface rainfall processes is investigated in a life span of tropical convection based on hourly data from a two-dimensional cloud resolving simulation. The model is forced by the large-scale vertical velocity, zonal wind and horizontal advections obtained from tropical ocean global atmosphere coupled ocean-atmosphere response experiment (TOGA COARE). The results show that during the genesis, development, and decay of tropical convection, calculations with water vapor overestimate surface rain rate, and cloud condensate plays an important role in correcting overestimation in surface rain rates. The analysis is carried out in deep convective clouds and anvil clouds during the development of tropical convection. The surface rain rates calculated with water vapor in deep convective clouds and anvil clouds have similar magnitudes, the large surface rain rate appears in deep convective clouds due to the consumption of water hydrometeors whereas the small surface rain rate occurs in anvil clouds because of the gain of ice hydrometeors. Further analysis of the grid data shows that the surface rain rates calculated with water vapor and with cloud condensate are negatively correlated with the correlation coefficient of -0.85, and the surface rain rate calculated with cloud condensate is mainly contributed to the water hydrometeors in the tropical deep convective regime.     

Increased Arctic cloud longwave emissivity associated with pollution from mid-latitudes

There is consensus among climate models that Arctic climate is particularly sensitive to anthropogenic greenhouse gases and that, over the next century, Arctic surface temperatures are projected to rise at a rate about twice the global mean. The response of Arctic surface temperatures to greenhouse gas thermal emission is modified by Northern Hemisphere synoptic meteorology and local radiative processes. Aerosols may play a contributing factor through changes to cloud radiative properties. Here we evaluate a previously suggested contribution of anthropogenic aerosols to cloud emission and surface temperatures in the Arctic. Using four years of ground-based aerosol and radiation measurements obtained near Barrow, Alaska, we show that, where thin water clouds and pollution are coincident, there is an increase in cloud longwave emissivity resulting from elevated haze levels. This results in an estimated surface warming under cloudy skies of between 3.3 and 5.2 W m(-2) or 1 and 1.6 degrees C. Arctic climate is closely tied to cloud longwave emission, but feedback mechanisms in the system are complex and the actual climate response to the described sensitivity remains to be evaluated.     

The impact of humidity above stratiform clouds on indirect aerosol climate forcing

Some of the global warming from anthropogenic greenhouse gases is offset by increased reflection of solar radiation by clouds with smaller droplets that form in air polluted with aerosol particles that serve as cloud condensation nuclei. The resulting cooling tendency, termed the indirect aerosol forcing, is thought to be comparable in magnitude to the forcing by anthropogenic CO2, but it is difficult to estimate because the physical processes that determine global aerosol and cloud populations are poorly understood. Smaller cloud droplets not only reflect sunlight more effectively, but also inhibit precipitation, which is expected to result in increased cloud water. Such an increase in cloud water would result in even more reflective clouds, further increasing the indirect forcing. Marine boundary-layer clouds polluted by aerosol particles, however, are not generally observed to hold more water. Here we simulate stratocumulus clouds with a fluid dynamics model that includes detailed treatments of cloud microphysics and radiative transfer. Our simulations show that the response of cloud water to suppression of precipitation from increased droplet concentrations is determined by a competition between moistening from decreased surface precipitation and drying from increased entrainment of overlying air. Only when the overlying air is humid or droplet concentrations are very low does sufficient precipitation reach the surface to allow cloud water to increase with droplet concentrations. Otherwise, the response of cloud water to aerosol-induced suppression of precipitation is dominated by enhanced entrainment of overlying dry air. In this scenario, cloud water is reduced as droplet concentrations increase, which diminishes the indirect climate forcing.     

Temperature trends over the past five centuries reconstructed from borehole temperatures

For an accurate assessment of the relative roles of natural variability and anthropogenic influence in the Earth's climate, reconstructions of past temperatures from the pre-industrial as well as the industrial period are essential. But instrumental records are typically available for no more than the past 150 years. Therefore reconstructions of pre-industrial climate rely principally on traditional climate proxy records, each with particular strengths and limitations in representing climatic variability. Subsurface temperatures comprise an independent archive of past surface temperature changes that is complementary to both the instrumental record and the climate proxies. Here we use present-day temperatures in 616 boreholes from all continents except Antarctica to reconstruct century-long trends in temperatures over the past 500 years at global, hemispheric and continental scales. The results confirm the unusual warming of the twentieth century revealed by the instrumental record, but suggest that the cumulative change over the past five centuries amounts to about 1 K, exceeding recent estimates from conventional climate proxies. The strength of temperature reconstructions from boreholes lies in the detection of long-term trends, complementary to conventional climate proxies, but to obtain a complete picture of past warming, the differences between the approaches need to be investigated in detail.     

MCloudSim： modeling and simulating distributed clouds

Many distributed clouds which try to integrate the advantages of centralized clouds and distributed systems have been studied in recent years. Traditional cloud simulators focus on large scale data centers with virtualized servers, and cannot meet the needs of distributed cloud simulations. This paper introduces a generalized and extensible simulation framework, named MCloudSim, which is used for modeling and simulating distributed clouds. MCloudSim has the following characteristics： （ 1 ） the overlay protocol in MCloudSim can be freely replaced without affecting the function of other modules; （2） a Petri net workflow theory based task model is proposed to simulate distributed tasks; （3） a distributed cloud can be easily built by assembling and expanding the basic resource entities provided by MCloudSim. Finally, simulation results of scenarios with a 3-tier central-controlled distributed cloud and a P2P based cloud prove that MCloudSim has high efficiency and satisfies performance in supporting large scale experiments and different distributed clouds.     

气候暖化对台湾水文环境的冲击

自十九世纪中期起就开始发展的全球暖化现象,已使北半球平均气温上升的幅度接近摄氏一度.而伴随全球暖化的结果之一就是全球气候及水文循环正在急遽的改变,各地降雨的强度及分布型态因应气温的上升及气候极端变化而有明显的变化.以台湾地区为例,回顾百年来台湾降雨型态的变化趋势,讨论气候暖化对近五十年来台湾水文环境(地表水、地下水)所造成的影响.其中最显著的趋势为:南北降雨的差异性扩大,降雨型态朝极端化发展.这些变化趋势对未来水资源的调配与运用产生不利的影响.     

云计算安全体系设计与实现综述

云计算的安全性既要面对传统信息技术带来的安全威胁,又要面对云计算核心技术,如虚拟化带来的新风险。根据经典的以安全策略(policy)、保护(protection)、检测(detection)和响应(response)为核心的安全模型—PPDR模型,结合笔者在云服务商工作积累的多年安全实践,论述了云计算安全体系设计与实现的关键技术,包括网络、主机、应用、数据和运维运营5个层面的安全设计与实现,并对云计算安全相关的技术趋势进行了展望。提出一种经实战检验的云计算安全体系的设计与实现,特别是数据安全体系的设计与实现。该体系上线3年来,已消减针对云平台99.99%以上的安全攻击,经受住了现网大规模安全实战的考验。     

基于ISCCP卫星资料的南中国海云量特征分析

为较准确地了解掌握可以反映南中国海天气和气候特征的云量分布演变特征,利用1999年1月至2009年12月的ISCCP卫星云量资料,通过物理量特征提取、对比分析等方法,研究了南中国海总云量及高、中、低云量的分布演变特征,以及其与其他海域各季节云量季节性变化特征。结果表明:南中国海低云量四季中均表现为由海区向沿岸递减,总云量和中、高云量夏秋季高于冬春季,低云量则相反。对于不同海域的云量细节特征要依据各季节大气和海洋环流变化来细致区分,这样有助于在掌握规律基础上有效制作海域上空云的预报。     

A climatologically significant aerosol longwave indirect effect in the Arctic

The warming of Arctic climate and decreases in sea ice thickness and extent observed over recent decades are believed to result from increased direct greenhouse gas forcing, changes in atmospheric dynamics having anthropogenic origin, and important positive reinforcements including ice-albedo and cloud-radiation feedbacks. The importance of cloud-radiation interactions is being investigated through advanced instrumentation deployed in the high Arctic since 1997 (refs 7, 8). These studies have established that clouds, via the dominance of longwave radiation, exert a net warming on the Arctic climate system throughout most of the year, except briefly during the summer. The Arctic region also experiences significant periodic influxes of anthropogenic aerosols, which originate from the industrial regions in lower latitudes. Here we use multisensor radiometric data to show that enhanced aerosol concentrations alter the microphysical properties of Arctic clouds, in a process known as the 'first indirect' effect. Under frequently occurring cloud types we find that this leads to an increase of an average 3.4 watts per square metre in the surface longwave fluxes. This is comparable to a warming effect from established greenhouse gases and implies that the observed longwave enhancement is climatologically significant.     

Influence of the Gulf Stream on the troposphere

The Gulf Stream transports large amounts of heat from the tropics to middle and high latitudes, and thereby affects weather phenomena such as cyclogenesis and low cloud formation. But its climatic influence, on monthly and longer timescales, remains poorly understood. In particular, it is unclear how the warm current affects the free atmosphere above the marine atmospheric boundary layer. Here we consider the Gulf Stream's influence on the troposphere, using a combination of operational weather analyses, satellite observations and an atmospheric general circulation model. Our results reveal that the Gulf Stream affects the entire troposphere. In the marine boundary layer, atmospheric pressure adjustments to sharp sea surface temperature gradients lead to surface wind convergence, which anchors a narrow band of precipitation along the Gulf Stream. In this rain band, upward motion and cloud formation extend into the upper troposphere, as corroborated by the frequent occurrence of very low cloud-top temperatures. These mechanisms provide a pathway by which the Gulf Stream can affect the atmosphere locally, and possibly also in remote regions by forcing planetary waves. The identification of this pathway may have implications for our understanding of the processes involved in climate change, because the Gulf Stream is the upper limb of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, which has varied in strength in the past and is predicted to weaken in response to human-induced global warming in the future.     

Warming trends in Asia amplified by brown cloud solar absorption

Atmospheric brown clouds are mostly the result of biomass burning and fossil fuel consumption. They consist of a mixture of light-absorbing and light-scattering aerosols and therefore contribute to atmospheric solar heating and surface cooling. The sum of the two climate forcing terms-the net aerosol forcing effect-is thought to be negative and may have masked as much as half of the global warming attributed to the recent rapid rise in greenhouse gases. There is, however, at least a fourfold uncertainty in the aerosol forcing effect. Atmospheric solar heating is a significant source of the uncertainty, because current estimates are largely derived from model studies. Here we use three lightweight unmanned aerial vehicles that were vertically stacked between 0.5 and 3 km over the polluted Indian Ocean. These unmanned aerial vehicles deployed miniaturized instruments measuring aerosol concentrations, soot amount and solar fluxes. During 18 flight missions the three unmanned aerial vehicles were flown with a horizontal separation of tens of metres or less and a temporal separation of less than ten seconds, which made it possible to measure the atmospheric solar heating rates directly. We found that atmospheric brown clouds enhanced lower atmospheric solar heating by about 50 per cent. Our general circulation model simulations, which take into account the recently observed widespread occurrence of vertically extended atmospheric brown clouds over the Indian Ocean and Asia, suggest that atmospheric brown clouds contribute as much as the recent increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases to regional lower atmospheric warming trends. We propose that the combined warming trend of 0.25 K per decade may be sufficient to account for the observed retreat of the Himalayan glaciers.     

The formation process and cloud physical characteristics for a typical downburstproducing thunderstorm in Beijing

The formation process and characteristics of cloud physical structure of a severe thunderstorm accompanied with strong wind on 23 August, 2001 in Beijing was studied using PSU/NCAR mesoscale model (MM5)coupling with a severe storm model with hail-bin microphysics. The results show that the specific topography and distribution features of cold/warm current in the Beijing region played prominent roles in forming, developing and maintaining the severe storm. Due to solar radiation heating and topographic lifting, the convective cells were easily formed when the westerly airflow passed over high mountainous regions in Beijing. The warm and wet air entered the cloud from its frontage and enhanced the convection, and formed a large amount of graupel/hail particles at the middle and upper portion of the clouds. The precipitation was primarily formed due to melting of graupel/hail particles. The strong downdraft was mainly produced by negative buoyancy due to loading,melting of graupel/hail particles as well as evaporative cooling of rain water. The divergent airflow induced by the strong downdraft led to the disastrous burst winds at the surface and also forced lifting of warm and wet airflow in the moving direction of the storm and formed new clouds that further promoted and maintained the storm development.     

安徽省副高控制下对流云特征分析

收集2001、2002年5-10月副高控制下安徽省对流云个例.通过分析卫星云图上,对流云发生发展过程中云顶亮温、面积、几何形态等特征物理量的变化,来分析揭示这一天气背景下安徽省对流云特征.并通过分析对流云发生的地理位置,寻找对流云易发区.统计结果显示,在这一天气背景下,安徽省境内的对流云团中以在局地生消、短生命史的对流云为主.     

Methane drizzle on Titan

Saturn's moon Titan shows landscapes with fluvial features suggestive of hydrology based on liquid methane. Recent efforts in understanding Titan's methane hydrological cycle have focused on occasional cloud outbursts near the south pole or cloud streaks at southern mid-latitudes and the mechanisms of their formation. It is not known, however, if the clouds produce rain or if there are also non-convective clouds, as predicted by several models. Here we show that the in situ data on the methane concentration and temperature profile in Titan's troposphere point to the presence of layered optically thin stratiform clouds. The data indicate an upper methane ice cloud and a lower, barely visible, liquid methane-nitrogen cloud, with a gap in between. The lower, liquid, cloud produces drizzle that reaches the surface. These non-convective methane clouds are quasi-permanent features supported by the global atmospheric circulation, indicating that methane precipitation occurs wherever there is slow upward motion. This drizzle is a persistent component of Titan's methane hydrological cycle and, by wetting the surface on a global scale, plays an active role in the surface geology of Titan.