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Project properties |
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| Title | Is the 2m temperature the best measure for climate change? |
| Group | Meteorology and Air Quality Group |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 36 |
| Supervisor(s) | Gert-Jan Steeneveld (Gert-Jan.Steeneveld@wur.nl)
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| Examiner(s) | Prof. dr. AAM Holtslag |
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| Begin date | 2018/01/01 |
| End date | 2020/02/01 |
| Description | <a href="http://www.met.wau.nl/thesis/MSc_thesis_proposal_T2m_CO2.pdf" > Description with pictures </a><br>
The continuously increasing CO2 concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere has led to a globally warmer climate. However several aspects of the warming remain unravelled. First of all, the warming has not been evenly distributed over the day since most of the observed warming was found at night, while climate models do reproduce this asymmetry (Fig 1). The second issue concerns the fact that climate detection from observations is strongly based on temperature observation at the 2 m level (T2m). However, is that the correct level? The proposed research builds upon the earlier work by Steeneveld et al (2011) and McNider et al (2012). These papers show that for a single column model study, that the T2m trend is constant over a wide range of geostrophic winds due to an interaction with the land surface and due to redistribution of heat within the atmospheric boundary layer (Fig 2). In the new research we propose an analogue study but for a model that is in the model hierarchy between a fully operational low resolution global climate model and an academic high resolution single column model, i.e. the mesoscale model WRF (http://www.wrf-model.org/). The research questions we wish to answer by enhancing the CO2 concentration the WRF model are: • Does the WRF model reproduce T2m rise as indicated by the single column model? • Does WRF show a difference in T2m rise between day and night? • How is the vertical distribution of temperature increase within WRF and is it consistent with the single column model? • Does WRF generate spatial differences in T2m rise (i.e. for different land use classes)? References: Steeneveld, G.J., A.A.M. Holtslag, R.T. McNider, R.A. Pielke Sr., 2011: Screen level temperature increase due to higher atmospheric carbon dioxide in calm and windy nights revisited, J. Geophys. Res., 116, D02122, doi:10.1029/2010JD014612 McNider, R. T., G. J. Steeneveld, A. A. M. Holtslag, R. A. Pielke Sr., S. Mackaro, A. Pour-Biazar, J. Walters, U. Nair, and J. Christy (2012), Response and sensitivity of the nocturnal boundary layer over land to added longwave radiative forcing, J. Geophys. Res., 117, D14106, doi:10.1029/2012JD017578 |
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