The effect of changing sea ice on the physical vulnerability of Arctic coasts The Cryosphere DOI 10.5194/tc-8-1777-2014 26 September 2014 Sea ice provides a first-order control on the physical vulnerability of Arctic coasts to erosion, inundation, and damage to settlements and infrastructures by ocean water. This paper focuses on how the changing sea-ice cover has influenced coastal erosion over the satellite record. Read more
A framework for benchmarking of homogenisation algorithm performance on the global scale Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems DOI 10.5194/gi-3-187-2014 25 September 2014 The International Surface Temperature Initiative (ISTI) is striving towards substantively improving our ability to robustly understand historical land surface air temperature change at all scales. A key recently completed first step has been collating all available records into a comprehensive open access, traceable and version-controlled databank. Read more
The XWS open access catalogue of extreme European windstorms from 1979 to 2012 Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences DOI 10.5194/nhess-14-2487-2014 22 September 2014 This papers introduces the XWS (eXtreme WindStorms) catalogue, which consists of storm tracks and model-generated maximum 3 s wind-gust footprints for 50 of the most extreme winter windstorms to hit Europe in the period 1979–2012. Read more
The length of the world’s glaciers – a new approach for the global calculation of center lines The Cryosphere DOI 10.5194/tc-8-1741-2014 19 September 2014 Here the authors present a first global assessment of glacier length using an automated method that relies on glacier surface slope, distance to the glacier margins and a set of trade-off functions. Read more
Smoothing error pitfalls Atmospheric Measurement Techniques DOI 10.5194/amt-7-3023-2014 18 September 2014 The difference due to the content of a priori information between a constrained retrieval and the true atmospheric state is usually represented by a diagnostic quantity called smoothing error. In this paper it is shown that the concept of the smoothing error as a component of the retrieval error budget is questionable because it is not compliant with Gaussian error propagation. Read more
Sensitivity of the dynamics of Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica, to climate forcing for the next 50 years The Cryosphere DOI 10.5194/tc-8-1699-2014 17 September 2014 The authors employ a 3D, higher-order model to simulate the evolution of Pine Island Glacier over the next 50 yr in response to changes in its surface mass balance, the position of its calving front and ocean-induced ice shelf melting. Read more
Tropospheric ozone increases over the southern Africa region: bellwether for rapid growth in Southern Hemisphere pollution? Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics DOI 10.5194/acp-14-9855-2014 17 September 2014 Increases in tropospheric ozone based on ozonesonde records (early 1990s to 2008) over subtropical stations in Irene (South Africa) and Réunion have been reported. Over Irene a large increase in the urban-influenced boundary layer (BL) was also observed. This paper shows that the Irene BL trend is at least partly due to a gradual change in the sonde launch times. Read more
Numerical studies on the Impact of the Last Glacial Cycle on recent borehole temperature profiles: implications for terrestrial energy balance Climate of the Past DOI 10.5194/cp-10-1693-2014 10 September 2014 In this paper, the authors provide the first estimate of the impact of the development of the Laurentide ice sheet on the estimates of energy and temperature reconstructions from measurements of terrestrial borehole temperatures in North America. Read more
Short ensembles: an efficient method for discerning climate-relevant sensitivities in atmospheric general circulation models Geoscientific Model Development DOI 10.5194/gmd-7-1961-2014 8 September 2014 This paper explores the feasibility of an experimentation strategy for investigating sensitivities in fast components of atmospheric general circulation models. Read more
Release of hydrogen peroxide and antioxidants by the coral Stylophora pistillata to its external milieu Biogeosciences DOI 10.5194/bg-11-4587-2014 1 September 2014 This paper presents a laboratory characterisation of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and antioxidant activity release kinetics by intact, non-stressed Stylophora pistillata. Experimenting with bleached and non-bleached corals and different stirring speeds, the authors explored the sources and modes of H2O2 and antioxidant release. Read more
