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Journal articleGood SW, Kilpua EKJ, LaMoury AT, et al., 2019, , Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, Vol: 124, Pages: 4960-4982, ISSN: 2169-9380
Interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) are a significant feature of the heliospheric environment and the primary cause of adverse space weather at the Earth. ICME propagation and the evolution of ICME magnetic field structure during propagation are still not fully understood. We analyze the magnetic field structures of 18 ICME magnetic flux ropes observed by radially aligned spacecraft in the inner heliosphere. Similarity in the underlying flux rope structures is determined through the application of a simple technique that maps the magnetic field profile from one spacecraft to the other. In many cases, the flux ropes show very strong underlying similarities at the different spacecraft. The mapping technique reveals similarities that are not readily apparent in the unmapped data and is a useful tool when determining whether magnetic field time series observed at different spacecraft are associated with the same ICME. Lundquist fitting has been applied to the flux ropes, and the rope orientations have been determined; macroscale differences in the profiles at the aligned spacecraft may be ascribed to differences in flux rope orientation. Assuming that the same region of the ICME was observed by the aligned spacecraft in each case, the fitting indicates some weak tendency for the rope axes to reduce in inclination relative to the solar equatorial plane and to align with the solar east鈥恮est direction with heliocentric distance.Plain Language SummaryCoronal mass ejections (CMEs) are large eruptions of magnetic field and plasma from the Sun. When they arrive at the Earth, these eruptions can cause significant damage to ground and orbital infrastructure; forecasting this “space weather” impact of CMEs at the Earth remains a difficult task. The impact of individual CMEs is largely dependent on their magnetic field configurations, and an important aspect of space weather forecasting is understanding how CME field configuration changes with distance from t
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Journal articleKronberg EA, Grigorenko EE, Malykhin A, et al., 2019, , Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, Vol: 124, Pages: 5056-5069, ISSN: 2169-9380
The dissipation processes which transform electromagnetic energy into kinetic particle energy in space plasmas are still not fully understood. Of particular interest is the distribution of the dissipated energy among different species of charged particles. The Jovian magnetosphere is a unique laboratory to study this question because outflowing ions from the moon Io create a high diversity in ion species. In this work, we use multispecies ion observations and magnetic field measurements by the Galileo spacecraft. We limit our study to observations of plasmoids in the Jovian magnetotail, because there is strong ion acceleration in these structures. Our model predicts that electromagnetic turbulence in plasmoids plays an essential role in the acceleration of oxygen, sulfur, and hydrogen ions. The observations show a decrease of the oxygen and sulfur energy spectral index γ at ∼30 to ∼400 keV/nuc with the wave power indicating an energy transfer from electromagnetic waves to particles, in agreement with the model. The wave power threshold for effective acceleration is of the order of 10 nT2Hz−1, as in terrestrial plasmoids. However, this is not observed for hydrogen ions, implying that processes other than wave鈥恜article interaction are more important for the acceleration of these ions or that the time and energy resolution of the observations is too coarse. The results are expected to be confirmed by improved plasma measurements by the Juno spacecraft.
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Journal articleCeppi P, Shepherd TG, 2019, , Geophysical Research Letters, Vol: 46, Pages: 6972-6979, ISSN: 0094-8276
Future shifts of the austral midlatitude jet are subject to large uncertainties in climate model projections. Here we show that, in addition to other previously identified sources of intermodel uncertainty, changes in the timing of the stratospheric polar vortex breakdown modulate the austral jet response to greenhouse gas forcing during summertime (December–February). The relationship is such that a larger delay in vortex breakdown favors a more poleward jet shift, with an estimated 0.7–0.8° increase in jet shift per 10-day delay in vortex breakdown. The causality of the link between the timing of the vortex breakdown and the tropospheric jet response is demonstrated through climate modeling experiments with imposed changes in the seasonality of the stratospheric polar vortex. The vortex response is estimated to account for about 30% of the intermodel variance in the shift of the summertime austral jet and about 45% of the mean jet shift.
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Journal articleCravens TE, Moore L, Waite JH, et al., 2019, , GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, Vol: 46, Pages: 6315-6321, ISSN: 0094-8276
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- Citations: 21
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Journal articleMallet A, Klein KG, Chandran BDG, et al., 2019, , JOURNAL OF PLASMA PHYSICS, Vol: 85, ISSN: 0022-3778
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- Citations: 28
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Journal articleBellisario C, Brindley HE, Tett SFB, et al., 2019, , Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol: 19, Pages: 7927-7937, ISSN: 1680-7316
Far-infrared (FIR: 100cm−1<wavenumber, ν<667 cm−1) radiation emitted by the Earth and its atmosphere plays a key role in the Earth's energy budget. However, because of a lack of spectrally resolved measurements, radiation schemes in climate models suffer from a lack of constraint across this spectral range. Exploiting a method developed to estimate upwelling far-infrared radiation from mid-infrared (MIR: 667cm−1<ν<1400 cm−1) observations, we explore the possibility of inferring zenith FIR downwelling radiances in zenith-looking observation geometry, focusing on clear-sky conditions in Antarctica. The methodology selects a MIR predictor wavenumber for each FIR wavenumber based on the maximum correlation seen between the different spectral ranges. Observations from the REFIR-PAD instrument (Radiation Explorer in the Far Infrared – Prototype for Application and Development) and high-resolution radiance simulations generated from co-located radio soundings are used to develop and assess the method. We highlight the impact of noise on the correlation between MIR and FIR radiances by comparing the observational and theoretical cases. Using the observed values in isolation, between 150 and 360 cm−1, differences between the “true” and “extended” radiances are less than 5 %. However, in spectral bands of low signal, between 360 and 667 cm−1, the impact of instrument noise is strong and increases the differences seen. When the extension of the observed spectra is performed using regression coefficients based on noise-free radiative transfer simulations the results show strong biases, exceeding 100 % where the signal is low. These biases are reduced to just a few percent if the noise in the observations is accounted for in the simulation procedure. Our results imply that while it is feasible to use this type of approach to extend mid-infrared spectral m
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Journal articleTong Y, Vasko IY, Artemyev A, et al., 2019, , ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL, Vol: 878, ISSN: 0004-637X
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- Citations: 85
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Journal articleStawarz J, Eastwood JP, Phan TD, et al., 2019, , Letters of the Astrophysical Journal, Vol: 877, ISSN: 2041-8205
Turbulent plasmas generate intense current structures, which have long been suggested as magnetic reconnection sites. Recent Magnetospheric Multiscale observations in Earth's magnetosheath revealed a novel form of reconnection where the dynamics only couple to electrons, without ion involvement. It was suggested that such dynamics were driven by magnetosheath turbulence. In this study, the fluctuations are examined to determine the properties of the turbulence and if a signature of reconnection is present in the turbulence statistics. The study reveals statistical properties consistent with plasma turbulence with a correlation length of ~10 ion inertial lengths. When reconnection is more prevalent, a steepening of the magnetic spectrum occurs at the length scale of the reconnecting current sheets. The statistics of intense currents suggest the prevalence of electron-scale current sheets favorable for electron reconnection. The results support the hypothesis that electron reconnection is driven by turbulence and highlight diagnostics that may provide insight into reconnection in other turbulent plasmas.
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Journal articlewang S, Toumi R, 2019, , Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol: 76, Pages: 1809-1826, ISSN: 0022-4928
The impact of dry midlevel air on the outer circulation of tropical cyclones is investigated in idealized simulations with and without a moist envelope protecting the inner core. It is found that a dry midlevel layer away from the cyclone center can broaden the outer primary circulation and thus the overall destructive potential at both developing and mature stages. The midlevel outer drying enhances the horizontal gradient of latent heating in the rainbands and drives the expansion of the outer circulation. The moist convection at large radii is suppressed rapidly after the midlevel air is dried in the outer rainbands. An enhanced horizontal gradient of latent heating initiates a radial-vertical overturning circulation anomaly in the rainbands. This anomalous overturning circulation accelerates the radial inflow of the main secondary circulation, increases the angular momentum import, and thus increases the cyclone size. The dry air, mixed into the boundary layer from the midtroposphere, is “recharged” by high enthalpy fluxes due to the increased thermodynamical disequilibrium above the sea surface. This “recharge” process protects the eyewall convection from the environmental dry air ventilation. The proposed mechanism may explain the continuous expansion in the tropical cyclone outer circulation after maturity as found in observations.
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Journal articleLasslop G, Coppola A, Voulgarakis A, et al., 2019, , CURRENT CLIMATE CHANGE REPORTS, Vol: 5, Pages: 112-123, ISSN: 2198-6061
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Journal articleCohen IJ, Schwartz SJ, Goodrich KA, et al., 2019, , JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-SPACE PHYSICS, Vol: 124, Pages: 3961-3978, ISSN: 2169-9380
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- Citations: 46
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Journal articleLiu F, Fiencke C, Guo J, et al., 2019, , Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Vol: 26, Pages: 15847-15856, ISSN: 0944-1344
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Journal articleMatteini L, Stansby D, Horbury TS, et al., 2019, , Il Nuovo Cimento C – Colloquia and Communications in Physics, Vol: 42, ISSN: 2037-4909
We discuss properties of large amplitude magnetic field fluctuationsduring fast Alfv 虂eenic solar wind streams, focussing on the statistics of the rotationangle between consecutive magnetic field vector measurements for different scalesin the plasma. Since in the fast solar wind fluctuations preserve the modulus ofthe magnetic field to a good approximation, the tip of the magnetic field vector isobserved to move on a sphere of approximately constant radius|B|.Wethencom-pare statistics of solar wind measurements with that of a simple model of a randomwalk bounded on a spherical surface. The analogy consists in the fact that in bothsystems the geometrical constraint imposes a limiting amplitude at large separa-tions and thus introduces a break scale in the power spectrum of the fluctuations,leading to a shallower slope for scales where the fluctuations amplitude becomesscale-independent. However, while in the case of the random walk the saturationof the fluctuations occurs when the pattern becomes uniform on the sphere (flatdistribution of the cosine of the rotation angle), transitioning then to a white noiseregime, in the solar wind magnetic field fluctuations saturate in amplitude maintain-ing a preferential direction. We suggest that this behaviour is due to the presence ofthe background interplanetary magnetic field, which keeps some long-range memoryin the system also when the fluctuations becomes independent of the scale. Thislong-range correlation is a necessary ingredient in order to produce the 1/fspectrumobserved at large scales in the solar wind.
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Journal articleJohnston C, Cargill P, antolin P, et al., 2019, , Astronomy and Astrophysics, Vol: 625, ISSN: 0004-6361
Thermal non-equilibrium (TNE) is believed to be a potentially important process in understanding some properties ofthe magnetically closed solar corona. Through one-dimensional hydrodynamic models, this paper addresses the importanceof the numerical spatial resolution, footpoint heating timescales and background heating on TNE. Inadequatetransition region (TR) resolution can lead to significant discrepancies in TNE cycle behaviour, with TNE being suppressedin under-resolved loops. A convergence on the periodicity and plasma properties associated with TNE requiredspatial resolutions of less than 2 km for a loop of length 180 Mm. These numerical problems can be resolved using anapproximate method that models the TR as a discontinuity using a jump condition, as proposed by Johnston et al.(2017a,b). The resolution requirements (and so computational cost) are greatly reduced while retaining good agreementwith fully resolved results. Using this approximate method we (i) identify different regimes for the response of coronalloops to time-dependent footpoint heating including one where TNE does not arise and (ii) demonstrate that TNE in aloop with footpoint heating is suppressed unless the background heating is sufficiently small. The implications for thegenerality of TNE are discussed.
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Journal articleCobb A, Czaja A, 2019, , GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, Vol: 46, Pages: 5575-5581, ISSN: 0094-8276
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Journal articleInai Y, Fujita R, Machida T, et al., 2019, , ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS, Vol: 19, Pages: 7073-7103, ISSN: 1680-7316
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- Citations: 4
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Journal articleBanks JR, Huenerbein A, Heinold B, et al., 2019, , Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol: 19, Pages: 6893-6911, ISSN: 1680-7316
Infrared “Desert Dust” composite imagery taken by the Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI), onboard the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) series of satellites above the equatorial East Atlantic, has been widely used for more than a decade to identify and track the presence of dust storms from and over the Sahara Desert, the Middle East, and southern Africa. Dust is characterised by distinctive pink colours in the Desert Dust false-colour imagery; however, the precise colour is influenced by numerous environmental properties, such as the surface thermal emissivity and skin temperature, the atmospheric water vapour content, the quantity and height of dust in the atmosphere, and the infrared optical properties of the dust itself. For this paper, simulations of SEVIRI infrared measurements and imagery have been performed using a modelling system, which combines dust concentrations simulated by the aerosol transport model COSMO-MUSCAT (COSMO: COnsortium for Small-scale MOdelling; MUSCAT: MUltiScale Chemistry Aerosol Transport Model) with radiative transfer simulations from the RTTOV (Radiative Transfer for TOVS) model. Investigating the sensitivity of the synthetic infrared imagery to the environmental properties over a 6-month summertime period from 2011 to 2013, it is confirmed that water vapour is a major control on the apparent colour of dust, obscuring its presence when the moisture content is high. Of the three SEVIRI channels used in the imagery (8.7, 10.8, and 12.0 µm), the channel at 10.8 µm has the highest atmospheric transmittance and is therefore the most sensitive to the surface skin temperature. A direct consequence of this sensitivity is that the background desert surface exhibits a strong diurnal cycle in colour, with light blue colours possible during the day and purple hues prevalent at night. In dusty scenes, the clearest pink colours arise from high-altitude dust in dry atmospheres. Elevated dust
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Journal articleCui X, Newman S, Xu X, et al., 2019, , SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT, Vol: 664, Pages: 381-391, ISSN: 0048-9697
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- Citations: 10
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Journal articlePhan TD, Eastwood JP, Shay MA, et al., 2019, , Nature, Vol: 569, Pages: E9-E9, ISSN: 0028-0836
Change history: In this Letter, the y-axis values in Fig. 3f should go from 4 to -8 (rather than from 4 to -4), the y-axis values in Fig. 3h should appear next to the major tick marks (rather than the minor ticks), and in Fig. 1b, the arrows at the top and bottom of the electron-scale current sheet were going in the wrong direction; these errors have been corrected online.
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Journal articleBowen TA, Zhivun E, Wickenbrock A, et al., 2019, , GEOSCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTATION METHODS AND DATA SYSTEMS, Vol: 8, Pages: 129-138, ISSN: 2193-0856
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- Citations: 8
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Journal articleBarnes D, Davies JA, Harrison RA, et al., 2019, , Solar Physics, Vol: 294, ISSN: 0038-0938
Recent observations with the Heliospheric Imagers (HIs) onboard the twin NASA Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft have provided unprecedented observations of a large number of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in the inner heliosphere. In this article we discuss the generation of the HIGeoCAT CME catalogue and perform a statistical analysis of its events. The catalogue was generated as part of the EU FP7 HELCATS (Heliospheric Cataloguing, Analysis and Techniques Service) project ( www.helcats-fp7.eu/ ). It is created by generating time/elongation maps for CMEs using observations from the inner (HI-1) and outer (HI-2) cameras along a position angle close to the CME apex. Next, we apply single-spacecraft geometric-fitting techniques to determine the kinematic properties of these CMEs, including their speeds, propagation directions, and launch times. The catalogue contains a total of 1455 events (801 from STEREO-A and 654 from STEREO-B) from April 2007 to the end of August 2017. We perform a statistical analysis of the properties of CMEs in HIGeoCAT and compare the results with those from the Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) CDAW catalogues (Yashiro et al.J. Geophys. Res. Space Phys.109, A07105, 2004) and the COR-2 catalogue of Vourlidas et al. (Astrophys. J.838, 141, 2004) during the same period. We find that the distributions of both speeds and latitudes for the HIGeoCAT CMEs correlate with the sunspot number over the solar cycle. We also find that the HI-derived CME speed distributions are generally consistent with coronagraph catalogues over the solar cycle, albeit with greater absolute speeds due to the differing methods with which each is derived.
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Journal articleTang T, Shindell D, Faluvegi G, et al., 2019, , Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol: 124, Pages: 4382-4394, ISSN: 2169-897X
American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. We compare six methods of estimating effective radiative forcing (ERF) using a set of atmosphere-ocean general circulation models. This is the first multiforcing agent, multimodel evaluation of ERF values calculated using different methods. We demonstrate that previously reported apparent consistency between the ERF values derived from fixed sea surface temperature simulations and linear regression holds for most climate forcings, excluding black carbon (BC). When land adjustment is accounted for, however, the fixed sea surface temperature ERF values are generally 10–30% larger than ERFs derived using linear regression across all forcing agents, with a much larger (~70–100%) discrepancy for BC. Except for BC, this difference can be largely reduced by either using radiative kernel techniques or by exponential regression. Responses of clouds and their effects on shortwave radiation show the strongest variability in all experiments, limiting the application of regression-based ERF in small forcing simulations.
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Journal articleYang L, Wang L, Li G, et al., 2019, , ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL, Vol: 875, ISSN: 0004-637X
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- Citations: 25
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Journal articleGryspeerdt E, Goren T, Sourdeval O, et al., 2019, , Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol: 19, Pages: 5331-5347, ISSN: 1680-7316
The impact of aerosols on cloud properties is one of the largest uncertainties in the anthropogenic radiative forcing of the climate. Significant progress has been made in constraining this forcing using observations, but uncertainty remains, particularly in the magnitude of cloud rapid adjustments to aerosol perturbations. Cloud liquid water path (LWP) is the leading control on liquid-cloud albedo, making it important to observationally constrain the aerosol impact on LWP.Previous modelling and observational studies have shown that multiple processes play a role in determining the LWP response to aerosol perturbations, but that the aerosol effect can be difficult to isolate. Following previous studies using mediating variables, this work investigates use of the relationship between cloud droplet number concentration (Nd) and LWP for constraining the role of aerosols. Using joint-probability histograms to account for the non-linear relationship, this work finds a relationship that is broadly consistent with previous studies. There is significant geographical variation in the relationship, partly due to role of meteorological factors (particularly relative humidity). The Nd–LWP relationship is negative in the majority of regions, suggesting that aerosol-induced LWP reductions could offset a significant fraction of the instantaneous radiative forcing from aerosol–cloud interactions (RFaci).However, variations in the Nd–LWP relationship in response to volcanic and shipping aerosol perturbations indicate that the Nd–LWP relationship overestimates the causal Nd impact on LWP due to the role of confounding factors. The weaker LWP reduction implied by these “natural experiments” means that this work provides an upper bound to the radiative forcing from aerosol-induced changes in the LWP.
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Journal articleMisios S, Gray LJ, Knudsen MF, et al., 2019, , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USA, Vol: 116, Pages: 7186-7191, ISSN: 0027-8424
The Pacific Walker Circulation (PWC) fluctuates on interannual and multidecadal timescales under the influence of internal variability and external forcings. Here, we provide observational evidence that the 11-y solar cycle (SC) affects the PWC on decadal timescales. We observe a robust reduction of east-west sea-level pressure gradients over the Indo-Pacific Ocean during solar maxima and the following 1-2 y. This reduction is associated with westerly wind anomalies at the surface and throughout the equatorial troposphere in the western/central Pacific paired with an eastward shift of convective precipitation that brings more rainfall to the central Pacific. We show that this is initiated by a thermodynamical response of the global hydrological cycle to surface warming, further amplified by atmosphere-ocean coupling, leading to larger positive ocean temperature anomalies in the equatorial Pacific than expected from simple radiative forcing considerations. The observed solar modulation of the PWC is supported by a set of coupled ocean-atmosphere climate model simulations forced only by SC irradiance variations. We highlight the importance of a muted hydrology mechanism that acts to weaken the PWC. Demonstration of this mechanism acting on the 11-y SC timescale adds confidence in model predictions that the same mechanism also weakens the PWC under increasing greenhouse gas forcing.
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Journal articleHesse M, Norgren C, Tenfjord P, et al., 2019, , Physics of Plasmas, Vol: 26, ISSN: 1070-664X
In a recent paper1 about electron heating at the reconnection separatrix, two figures depicting the contributions to the electron energy balance and the contribution to the total, quasi-viscous heating are incorrectly displayed. The correct figures are as follows: [Table Presented].
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Journal articleLai T-K, Menelaou K, Yau MK, 2019, , JOURNAL OF THE ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES, Vol: 76, Pages: 989-1013, ISSN: 0022-4928
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Book chapterGryspeerdt E, 2019,
Ruskin and Meteorology
, Ruskin, Turner and the Storm Cloud, Editors: Cooper, Johns, Publisher: Paul Holberton Publishing, ISBN: 978-1-911300-60-1 -
Journal articleM眉ller-Wodarg ICF, Koskinen TT, Moore L, et al., 2019, , Geophysical Research Letters, Vol: 46, Pages: 2372-2380, ISSN: 0094-8276
Atmospheric waves have been discovered for the first time in Saturn's neutral upper atmosphere (thermosphere). Waves may be generated from instabilities, convective storms or other atmospheric phenomena. The inferred wave amplitudes change little with height within the sampled region, raising the possibility of the waves being damped, which in turn may enhance the eddy friction within the thermosphere. Using our Saturn Thermosphere Ionosphere General Circulation Model, we explore the parameter space of how an enhanced Rayleigh drag in different latitude regimes would affect the global circulation pattern within the thermosphere and, in turn, its global thermal structure. We find that Rayleigh drag of sufficient magnitude at midlatitudes may reduce the otherwise dominant Coriolis forces and enhance equatorward winds to transport energy from poles toward the equator, raising the temperatures there to observed values. Without this Rayleigh drag, energy supplied into the polar upper atmosphere by magnetosphere鈥恆tmosphere coupling processes remains trapped at high latitudes and causes low鈥恖atitude thermosphere temperatures to remain well below the observed levels. Our simulations thus suggest that giant planet upper atmosphere global circulation models need to include additional Rayleigh drag in order to capture the effects of physical processes otherwise not resolved by the codes.
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Journal articleHanson ELM, Agapitov OV, Mozer FS, et al., 2019, , GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, Vol: 46, Pages: 2381-2389, ISSN: 0094-8276
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- Citations: 26
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