State of the Climate in 2014

Abstract

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Assessment of biomass burning smoke influence on environmental conditions for multiyear tornado outbreaks by combining aerosol‐aware microphysics and fire emission constraints

“…The latter condition is imposed because the proposed mechanisms being studied are driven by peak solar heating, which would dissipate at night or not yet occur in the morning. Many of these outbreaks have been highlighted as major events of the year they occurred [ Blunden and Arndt , , , ; Levinson and Lawrimore , ; Levinson and Waple , ; Peterson and Baringer , ], and specific studies have focused on their characteristics and impacts [ Hamill et al ., ; Knupp et al ., ]. The environmental conditions provided by Storm Prediction Center (SPC) Convective Outlooks and Mesoscale Analysis for these outbreaks are shown in Figure .…”

State of the Climate in 2016

“…The Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS) builds on active fire detections and their associated fire radiative power to estimate emissions in near-real time (Kaiser et al 2012). GFAS is calibrated to partly match the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED) which estimates emissions based on burned area and fuel consumption with a much longer latency (van der Werf et al 2010). The combined use of GFAS ( -16) and GFED (1997 indicates that fire emissions were on average 2.1 Pg C yr −1 (1 Pg = 10 15 g; C is carbon) with substantial interannual variability mostly stemming from tropical deforestation zones and the boreal regions where fire activity varies more from year to year than in most savanna areas.…”

Magnitude and frequency of heat and cold waves in recent decades: the case of South America

“…4 shows the HWMI tx for 2013 when Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil experienced intense heat waves. Specifically, Argentina and Uruguay experienced extremely warm temperatures at the end of 2013 (Blunden and Arndt, 2014), whereas the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (south-eastern Brazil) experienced their warmest January and February at the beginning of 2014 (Blunden and Arndt, 2015). Note that 2013 refers to the period July 2013-June 2014, as explained in the method section.…”