Search results for "Monsoon"
showing 10 items of 117 documents
South Asian monsoon climate change and radiocarbon in the Arabian Sea during early and middle Holocene
2002
The 1 4 C ages of planktonic foraminifers Globigerinoides sacculifer bracketing the Younger Dryas in a δ 1 8 O record of Globigerinoides ruber from a laminated sediment core on the Pakistani continental margin suggest thatsurface reservoir ages in the Arabian Sea were in excess of 1000 years during the deglaciation. A least squares error fit of a detailed 1 4 C chronology to the (atmospheric) tree ring record gave variable early Holocene reservoir ages between 780 and 1120 years, well above the prebomb value of 640 years. Mid-Holocene reservoir ages are less well constrained but were probably closer to the prebomb value. The method used to fit individual core sections to the tree ring recor…
Climate variations of Central Asia on orbital to millennial timescales
2016
AbstractThe extent to which climate variability in Central Asia is causally linked to large-scale changes in the Asian monsoon on varying timescales remains a longstanding question. Here we present precisely dated high-resolution speleothem oxygen-carbon isotope and trace element records of Central Asia’s hydroclimate variability from Tonnel’naya cave, Uzbekistan and Kesang cave, western China. On orbital timescales, the supra-regional climate variance, inferred from our oxygen isotope records, exhibits a precessional rhythm, punctuated by millennial-scale abrupt climate events, suggesting a close coupling with the Asian monsoon. However, the local hydroclimatic variability at both cave sit…
Nile Basin Climates
2009
The climate of the Nile Basin is characterised by a strong latitudinal wetness gradient. Whereas the areas north of 18°N remain dry most of the year, to the south there is a gradual increase of monsoon precipitation amounts. Rainfall regimes can be divided into 9 types, among which summer peak regimes dominate. In the southern half of the basin, mesoscale circulation features and associated contrasts in local precipitation patterns develop as a result of a complex interplay involving topography, lakes and swamps. Precipitation changes and variability show up as 3 distinct modes of variability. Drying trends since the 1950s are found in central Sudan and to some extent the Ethiopian Highland…
A statistical approach towards a regionalization of daily rainfall in Sri Lanka
1993
Regionalization of daily rainfall in Sri Lanka was examined using orthogonal factor analysis (OFA) based on daily rainfall data of 42 stations for a 15-year period (1971–1985). The number of potential rainy days was computed from the original data matrix and subjected to S-mode OFA. The first 10 orthogonal factors were shown as highly significant, explaining 65.1 per cent of the total variance of the whole data matrix, where the level of eigenvalues represented was > 1.0. Noticeably, the 10 orthogonal factors clearly revealed the different homogeneous daily rainfall regions in Sri Lanka (labelled as A to J), according to the orthogonal factor high loadings matrix. Delimitation of the daily …
Interaction between the West African Monsoon and the summer Mediterranean climate: An overview.
2013
15 pages; International audience; Although in the framework of the global climate research the Mediterranean climate variability andthe West African Monsoon (WAM) dynamics have been considered for a long time as “passive”systems, i.e., prone to the influence of large scale ocean and atmospheric variability, over the lastdecade many studies have been dedicated to the WAM-Mediterranean interaction and the active roleof these climate systems has been highlighted. This article presents the WAM-Mediterraneanteleconnection through an overview of the recent literature, describing the observational evidencesand the dynamical mechanisms underlying this climate teleconnection. The influence of the Me…
Sensitivity of low-level clouds and precipitation to anthropogenic aerosol emission in southern West Africa: a DACCIWA case study
2021
Abstract. During the West African summer monsoon, pollutants emitted in urbanized coastal areas modify cloud cover and precipitation patterns. The Dynamics-Aerosol-Chemistry-Cloud-Interactions in West Africa (DACCIWA) field campaign provided numerous aircraft-based and ground-based observations, which are used here to evaluate two experiments made with the coupled WRF-CHIMERE model, integrating both the direct and indirect aerosol effect on meteorology. During one well-documented week (1–7 July 2016), the impacts of anthropogenic aerosols on the diurnal cycle of low-level clouds and precipitation are analyzed in detail using high and moderate intensity of anthropogenic emissions in the expe…
Early Warning Systems for Food Security in West Africa: Evolution, Achievements and Challenges
2010
In West Africa, early warning systems (EWSs) for food security have been widely recognized to have contributed, in the last 20 years, to an improved ability to deal with famine emergencies. Nevertheless, despite the advancements in understanding of the environmental and socio-economic dynamics and despite the improved technologies, tackling food security remains a difficult task for decision makers as demonstrated by local food crises in many countries of the region. African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis, while improving the understanding of the monsoon system, allowed us to better orient research challenges to provide EWS with improved products, effectively meeting the needs of end-us…
What Drove Past Teleconnections?
2003
Ice core records from Greenland and Antarctica and sediment records from the world9s oceans have shown that over the past 100,000 years, climate has varied substantially across the globe. In his Perspective, Sirocko asks what drove these--sometimes very rapid--climate oscillations. He highlights the report of Burns et al., whose monsoon record from the Indian Ocean shows strong similarities with ice core records from Greenland. Sirocko argues that the large areas of homogeneous sea surface temperature in the cold circum-Antarctic current and in the warm-water masses of the low latitudes must have played an important role in linking climate forcing between distant parts of the world. The muc…
Geochemical implications for changing dust supply by the Indian Monsoon system to the Arabian Sea during the last glacial cycle
2004
Element concentrations of 43 elements as well as inorganic and organic carbon content of sediment core 70KL from the western Arabian Sea were measured with high (1 cm) sample resolution. Principal components of the sediment’s chemical composition were determined with the help of statistical principle component analysis. These components are representing the major environmental factors at the site. The most important processes controlling the observed variations are the changing lithogenic influx derived from the major wind systems of the region (i.e., the Arabian northwesterly winds, the northeast winter monsoon and the southwest summer monsoon), summer monsoon associated upwelling and biog…
In situ observations of CH<sub>2</sub>Cl<sub>2</sub> and CHCl<sub>3</sub…
2021
Abstract. Efficient transport pathways for ozone-depleting very short-lived substances (VSLSs) from their source regions into the stratosphere are a matter of current scientific debate; however they have yet to be fully identified on an observational basis. Understanding the increasing impact of chlorine-containing VSLSs (Cl-VSLSs) on stratospheric ozone depletion is important in order to validate and improve model simulations and future predictions. We report on a transport study using airborne in situ measurements of the Cl-VSLSs dichloromethane (CH2Cl2) and trichloromethane (chloroform, CHCl3) to derive a detailed description of two transport pathways from (sub)tropical source regions in…