Zonal and meridional circulations in the equatorialzone as deduced from the divergence field of the surface wind     

Wang Shaowu  Todd P. Mitchell  John M. Wallace 《大气科学进展》1987,4(4):432-446

The zonal and meridional circulations and their variability are examined on the basis of the surface wind data for 1950-1979. The climatological mean zonal wind and its divergence are examined in reference to the Walker Circulation. The role played by the meridional circulation in contributing to convergence of the surface wind field within the equatorial zone is emphasized. Regression coefficients are used to infer seasonal mean anomalies of divergence of the surface wind in years when the sea level pressure is 1 hPa above normal at Darwin, a condition representative of El Nino events. It is shown that anomalies in the divergence associated with the meridional wind component are primarily responsible for the heavy precipitation in the Central Pacific, while the anomalous divergence associated with the zonal wind component may cause the drought in the Western Pacific near Indonesia. A similar pattern of divergence anomalies is evident during three consecutive seasons beginning in northern summer and ending in northern winter. The reinforcement of the Hadley Circulation during El Nino episodes is noted. It is shown that the circulations over the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean are relatively uncorrelated. The interrelation between the dipole anticyclones and the meridional cir-culation over the central Pacific is discussed.  相似文献   

Simulated climate and CO2—Induced climate change over Western Europe     

C. A. Wilson  J. F. B. Mitchell 《Climatic change》1987,10(1):11-42

The use of a relatively high resolution general circulation model (the Meteorological Office 5-layer model) to determine climate changes for impact studies is evaluated. The simulation of present day climate over Western Europe is assessed by comparing not only different seasons with climatological data, but also the mean annual cycle and the frequency of extreme events. It is found that while the broad features of the simulation are satisfactory, the model produces too many cold episodes in spring, and an excessive number of wet days over northern Europe. When atmospheric CO₂ concentrations are quadrupled, and sea surface temperatures and sea ice extents changed appropriately, the number of cold episodes is reduced and precipitation is less frequent in summer and autumn over much of Europe, and throughout the year in the south. The relevance of both the model data and the statistical tests to climate impact studies is discussed.  相似文献   

Book reviews     

Philip Rasch  L. D. Danny Harvey  R. G. Barry 《Climatic change》1987,10(2):201-206

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Solar-hydrogen electricity generation in the context of global CO2 emission reduction     

L. D. Danny Harvey 《Climatic change》1995,29(1):53-89

The relative costs and CO₂ emission reduction benefits of advanced centralized fossil fuel electricity generation, hybrid photovoltaic-fossil fuel electricity generation, and total solar electricity generation with hydrogen storage are compared. Component costs appropriate to the year 2000–2010 time frame are assumed throughout. For low insolation conditions (160 W m^–2 mean annual solar radiation), photovoltaic electricity could cost 5–13 cents/kWh by year 2000–2010, while for high insolation conditions (260 W m^–2) the cost could be 4–9 cents/kWh. Advanced fossil fuel-based power generation should achieve efficiencies of 50% using coal and 55% using natural gas. Carbon dioxide emissions would be reduced by a factor of 2 to 3 compared to conventional coal-based electricity production in industrialized countries. In a solar-fossil fuel hybrid, some electricity would be supplied from solar energy whenever the sun is shining and remaining demand satisfied by fossil fuels. This increases total capital costs but saves on fuel costs. For low insolation conditions, the costs of electricity increases by 0–2 cents/kWh, while the cost of electricity decreases in many cases for high insolation conditions. Solar energy would provide 20% or 30% of electricity demand for the low and high insolation cases, respectively. In the solar-hydrogen energy system, some photovoltaic arrays would provide current electricity demand while others would be used to produce hydrogen electrolytically for storage and later use in fuel cells to generate electricity. Electricity costs from the solar-hydrogen system are 0.2–5.4 cents/kWh greater than from a natural gas power plant, and 1.0–4.5 cents/kWh greater than from coal plant for the cost and performance assumptions adopted here. The carbon tax required to make the solar-hydrogen system competitive with fossil fuels ranges from $70–660/tonne, depending on the cost and performance of system components and the future price of fossil fuels.Leakage of hydrogen from storage into the atmosphere, and the eventual transport of a portion of the leaked hydrogen to the stratosphere, would result in the formation of stratospheric water vapor. This could perturb stratospheric ozone amounts and contribute to global warming. Order-of-magnitude calculations indicate that, for a leakage rate of 0.5% yr^–1 of total hydrogen production -which might be characteristic of underground hydrogen storage - the global warming effect of solarhydrogen electricity generation is comparable to that of a natural gas-solar energy hybrid system after one year of emission, but is on the order of 1% the impact of the hybrid system at a 100 year time scale. Impacts on stratospheric ozone are likely to be minuscule.  相似文献   

Creating a global warming implementation regime     

LD Danny Harvey 《Global Environmental Change》1995,5(5)

This paper proposes a global warming implementation regime which addresses the issues of equity, flexibility, cost minimization, and population growth. Previously proposed international policy instruments, such as country by country targets, carbon taxes, and tradable permits, face major difficulties as stand alone proposals. The key element of the regime proposed here is to combine annual tradable permits which are allocated based on population in a fixed year with a small carbon tax ($5–10/tonne) on emissions in excess of permits. Both permits and carbon taxes are applied to national level governments, which in turn would use whatever mix of policies desired to reduce national emissions. It is suggested that the initial number of permits correspond to total global emissions in the base year; over time, the number of permits could be reduced and the tax rate increased if improved scientific knowledge so dictates. By allocating permits based on population the equity concerns of developing countries are addressed, while taxing emissions in excess of permit holdings removes the rigidity of a quota system and limits resource transfers by effectively capping the permit trading price, which is a major concern of industrialized countries. To accommodate the difficulties of countries which have not yet achieved the demographic transition, the permit allocation scheme could be subject to a one-time adjustment after 10–15 years based on some weighting of the initial and then-current populations. The proposed scheme is based on the premise that there is a large potential for reducing emissions in developed countries or limiting emission increases in developing countries, and the intention is to create competition between national level governments in implementing cost-effective emission reduction.  相似文献   

Book review     

William D. Stuart  Kacper Rybicki  Brian J. Mitchell  Daniel Moos  Jeanne Sauber  Bernard Vonnegut  Ross J. Salawitch  David S. Gutzler 《Pure and Applied Geophysics》1987,125(5):853-855

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WAVE HEIGHTS IN THE SURF ZONE     

H. L. Mitchell 《The Photogrammetric Record》1983,11(62):183-193

The advantages and disadvantages of measuring ocean wave heights in the surf zone by using terrestrial photogrammetry are outlined. Difficulties arising from a lack of control points can be overcome by using the apparent horizon to provide camera orientations about two axes, provided that the apparent horizon is the sea surface and that an unconventional orientation of the camera axis system is adopted. Following practical tests and error simulation studies, height differences were determined for 12 points in the breaking wave zone off a Newcastle (New South Wales) beach. It is hoped that the method can be developed as a convenient means of collecting wave data.  相似文献   

Towards evaluating cloud response to climate change using clustering technique identification of cloud regimes     

Keith D. Williams  Catherine A. Senior  Anthony Slingo  John F. B. Mitchell 《Climate Dynamics》2005,24(7-8):701-719

Most of the discrepancies in the climate sensitivity of general circulation models (GCMs) are believed to be due to differences in cloud radiative feedback. Analysis of cloud response to climate change in different ‘regimes’ may offer a more detailed understanding of how the cloud response differs between GCMs. In which case, evaluation of simulated cloud regimes against observations in terms of both their cloud properties and frequency of occurrence will assist in assessing confidence in the cloud response to climate change in a particular GCM. In this study, we use a clustering technique on International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) data and on ISCCP-like diagnostics from two versions of the Hadley Centre GCM to identify cloud regimes over four different geographical regions. The two versions of the model are evaluated against observational data and their cloud response to climate change compared within the cloud regime framework. It is found that cloud clusters produced by the more recent GCM, HadSM4, compare more favourably with observations than HadSM3. In response to climate change, although the net cloud response over particular regions is often different in the two models, in several instances the same basic processes may be seen to be operating. Overall, both changes in the frequency of occurrence of cloud regimes and changes in the properties (optical depth and cloud top height) of the cloud regimes contribute to the cloud response to climate change.  相似文献   

Hillslope gullying in the Solway Firth — Morecambe Bay region, Great Britain: Responses to human impact and/or climatic deterioration?     

R.C. Chiverrell  A.M. Harvey  G.C. Foster 《Geomorphology》2007,84(3-4):317

In the Solway Firth — Morecambe Bay region of Great Britain there is evidence for heightened hillslope instability during the late Holocene (after 3000 cal. BP). Little or no hillslope geomorphic activity has been identified occurring during the early Holocene, but there is abundant evidence for late Holocene hillslope erosion (gullying) and associated alluvial fan and valley floor deposition. Interpretation of the regional radiocarbon chronology available from organic matter buried beneath alluvial fan units suggests much of this geomorphic activity can be attributed to four phases of more extensive gullying identified after 2500–2200, 1300–1000, 1000–800 and 500 cal. BP. Both climate and human impact models can be evoked to explain the crossing of geomorphic thresholds: and palaeoecological data on climatic change (bog surface wetness) and human impact (pollen), together with archaeological and documentary evidence of landscape history, provide a context for addressing the causes of late Holocene geomorphic instability. High magnitude storm events are the primary agent responsible for gully incision, but neither such events nor cooler/wetter climatic episodes appear to have produced gully systems in the region before 3000 cal. BP. Increased gullying after 2500–2200 cal. BP coincides with population expansion during Iron Age and Romano-British times. The widespread and extensive gullying after 1300–1000 cal. BP and after 1000–800 cal. BP coincides with periods of population expansion and a growing rural economy identified during Norse times, 9–10th centuries AD, and during the Medieval Period, 12–13th centuries AD. These periods were separated by a downturn associated with the ‘harrying of the north’ AD 1069 to 1070. The gullying episode after 500 cal. BP also coincides with increased anthropogenic pressure on the uplands, with population growth and agricultural expansion after AD 1500 following 150 years of malaise caused by livestock and human (the Black Death) plagues, poor harvests and conflicts on the Scottish/English border. The increased susceptibility to erosion of gullies is a response to increased anthropogenic pressure on upland hillslopes during the late Holocene, and the role of this pressure appears crucial in priming hillslopes before subsequent major storm events. In particular, the cycles of expansion and contraction in both population and agriculture appear to have affected the susceptibility of the upland landscape to erosion, and the hillslope gullying record in the region, therefore, contributes to understanding of the timing and spatial pattern of human exploitation of the upland landscape.  相似文献   

The impact of a major Quaternary river capture on the alluvial sediments of a beheaded river system, the Rio Alias SE Spain   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Elizabeth Maher  Adrian M. Harvey  Derek France 《Geomorphology》2007,84(3-4):344

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