Earthquakes and depleted gas reservoirs: which comes first? Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences DOI 10.5194/nhess-15-2201-2015 7 October 2015 While the debate is on the possibility that the 2012 Emilia quakes could have been triggered by human activity, we studied the inverse relationship between hydrocarbon and seismicity. Overlapping a data set of gas and oil wells with a database of seismic sources, we found that only 1/19 wells falling on the largest faults is currently productive, while the highest ratio of productive wells is found outside the seismogenic sources. In general, productive gas wells are anti-correlated with faults. Read more
ECCO version 4: an integrated framework for non-linear inverse modeling and global ocean state estimation Geoscientific Model Development DOI 10.5194/gmd-8-3071-2015 6 October 2015 The ECCO v4 non-linear inverse modeling framework and its reference solution are made publicly available. The inverse estimate of ocean physics and atmospheric forcing yields a dynamically consistent and global state estimate without unidentified sources of heat and salt that closely fits in situ and satellite data. Any user can reproduce it accurately. Parametric and external model uncertainties are of comparable magnitudes and generally exceed structural model uncertainties. Read more
Recent highlights from Cluster, the first 3-D magnetospheric mission Annales Geophysicae DOI 10.5194/angeo-33-1221-2015 2 October 2015 This paper presents recent highlights from the Cluster mission on solar wind turbulence, magnetopause asymmetries and magnetosheath density enhancements, dipolarisation currents, reconnection variability, FTE in greatest detail, plasmaspheric wind and re-filling of the plasmasphere, radiation belts, updates of magnetospheric electric and magnetic field models, and magnetosheath and magnetopause properties under low Mach number. Public access to all high-resolution data (CSA) is also presented. Read more
Evaluating the climate and air quality impacts of short-lived pollutants Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics DOI 10.5194/acp-15-10529-2015 24 September 2015 This paper presents a summary of the findings of the ECLIPSE EU project. The project has investigated the climate and air quality impacts of short-lived climate pollutants (especially methane, ozone, aerosols) and has designed a global mitigation strategy that maximizes co-benefits between air quality and climate policy. Transient climate model simulations allowed quantifying the impacts on temperature (e.g., reduction in global warming by 0.22K for the decade 2041-2050) and precipitation. Read more
POM.gpu-v1.0: a GPU-based Princeton Ocean Model Geoscientific Model Development DOI 10.5194/gmd-8-2815-2015 9 September 2015 Graphics processing units (GPUs) are an attractive solution in many scientific applications due to their high performance. However, most existing GPU conversions of climate models use GPUs for only a few computationally intensive regions. In the present study, we redesign the mpiPOM (a parallel version of the Princeton Ocean Model) with GPUs. We show that the performance of the new model on a workstation containing four GPUs is comparable to that on a powerful cluster with 408 standard CPU cores, and it reduces the energy consumption by a factor of 6.8. Read more
Impact of climate and land cover changes on tropospheric ozone air quality and public health in East Asia between 1980 and 2010 Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics DOI 10.5194/acp-15-10093-2015 9 September 2015 Historical land cover and land use change alone between 1980 and 2010 could lead to reduced summertime surface ozone by up to 4ppbv in East Asia. Climate change alone could lead to an increase in summertime ozone by 2-10ppbv in most of East Asia. Land cover change could offset part of the climate effect and lead to a previously unknown public health benefit. The sensitivity of surface ozone to land cover change is more dependent on dry deposition than isoprene emission in most of East Asia. Read more
The feasibility of water vapor sounding of the cloudy boundary layer using a differential absorption radar technique Atmospheric Measurement Techniques DOI 10.5194/amt-8-3631-2015 8 September 2015 This paper describes the feasibility of using a differential absorption radar technique for the remote sensing of water vapor within clouds near the Earth surface from a spaceborne platform. The proposed methodology is shown to be theoretically achievable and complimentary to existing water vapor remote sensing methods. Read more
Past changes in the vertical distribution of ozone – Part 3: Analysis and interpretation of trends Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics DOI 10.5194/acp-15-9965-2015 7 September 2015 Trends in the vertical distribution of ozone are reported for new and recently revised data sets. The amount of ozone-depleting compounds in the stratosphere peaked in the second half of the 1990s. We examine the trends before and after that peak to see if any change in trend is discernible. The previously reported decreases are confirmed. Furthermore, the downward trend in upper stratospheric ozone has not continued. The possible significance of any increase is discussed in detail. Read more
Diesel-related hydrocarbons can dominate gas phase reactive carbon in megacities Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics DOI 10.5194/acp-15-9983-2015 7 September 2015 Technological shifts between fuel sources have had unexpected impacts on atmospheric composition and these significant changes can go undetected if source-specific monitoring infrastructure is not in place. We present chemically comprehensive, continuous measurements of organic compounds in a developed megacity (London), that show diesel-related hydrocarbons can dominate reactive carbon and ozone formation potential, highlighting a serious underestimation of this source in emission inventories. Read more
Retrieving the paleoclimatic signal from the deeper part of the EPICA Dome C ice core The Cryosphere DOI 10.5194/tc-9-1633-2015 20 August 2015 The oldest paleoclimatic information is buried within the lowermost layers of deep ice cores. It is therefore essential to judge how deep these records remain unaltered. We study the bottom 60 meters of the EPICA Dome C ice core from central Antarctica to show that the paleoclimatic signal is only affected at the small scale (decimeters) in terms of some of the global ice properties. However our data suggest that the time scale has been considerably distorted by mechanical stretching. Read more
