Updated high‐resolution grids of monthly climatic observations – the <scp>CRU TS3</scp>.10 Dataset

Harris, Ian; Jones, Phil; Osborn, Timothy; Lister, David

doi:10.1002/joc.3711

Cited by 5,792 publications

(4,479 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…To test the sensitivity of our results to driving data, we used two radiation data sets: mean monthly values from the NASA/CERES energy-balanced and filled surface radiation budget, version 2.8, over the years 2001-2014 38 , and mean monthly values from the NASA/GEWEX surface radiation budget version 3.0 over the years 1984-2007 39 . We obtained mean monthly values of air temperature and vapour pressure from the CRU TS3.13 data set, a gridded climatology at 0.5° resolution interpolated from weather station measurements, which we averaged over the period 1961-2001, the period of maximum weather station coverage 40 . Atmospheric pressure was obtained using mean elevations from the ETOPO1 global digital elevation model 41 in each 1° cell and correcting using the ideal gas law 34 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water balance creates a threshold in soil pH at the global scale

Slessarev

Lin

Bingham

et al. 2016

Nature

437

255

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Soil pH regulates the capacity of soils to store and supply nutrients, and thus contributes substantially to controlling productivity in terrestrial ecosystems 1 . However, soil pH is not an independent regulator of soil fertility-rather, it is ultimately controlled by environmental forcing. In particular, small changes in water balance cause a steep transition from alkaline to acid soils across natural climate gradients 2,3 . Although the processes governing this threshold in soil pH are well understood, the threshold has not been quantified at the global scale, where the influence of climate may be confounded by the effects of topography and mineralogy. Here we evaluate the global relationship between water balance and soil pH by extracting a spatially random sample (n = 20,000) from an extensive compilation of 60,291 soil pH measurements. We show that there is an abrupt transition from alkaline to acid soil pH that occurs at the point where mean annual precipitation begins to exceed mean annual potential evapotranspiration. We evaluate deviations from this global pattern, showing that they may result from seasonality, climate history, erosion and mineralogy. These results demonstrate that climate creates a nonlinear pattern in soil solution chemistry at the global scale; they also reveal conditions under which soils maintain pH out of equilibrium with modern climate.Climate controls many aspects of soil chemistry, affecting soil pH (ref. 4). Alkaline soils are known to be common in arid climates, while acid soils are known to be common in humid climates 1 . Surprisingly, however, the global-scale mechanisms governing this pattern remain broadly defined, and untested by direct observation. What are the dominant chemical equilibria that constrain soil pH? What aspect of climate defines the transition between alkaline and acid soils, and is the transition linear? The answers to these questions are fundamental to understanding soil development and surface geochemistry at the global scale. Furthermore, achieving this understanding may prove essential for representing soils in models of the terrestrial biosphere, given that soil pH controls many aspects of soil fertility 5,6 . Here we illustrate that simple geochemical and hydrological concepts can be used to build a mechanistic understanding of soil pH at the global scale.Interpretations of acid-titration experiments indicate that the soil pH is typically most strongly buffered by equilibrium with two secondary minerals: calcite (CaCO 3 ), or gibbsite (Al(OH) 3 ) 7,8 Fig. 1).Local studies of climate gradients have shown that the relative importance of these two buffers is determined by leaching, which removes Ca 2+ from the soil 2,3,8,9 . In climates where evaporative demand exceeds precipitation, leaching rates are low, and dissolved Ca 2+ accumulates as CaCO 3 -buffering soil pH near 8.2 (ref. 4). Conversely, in climates where precipitation exceeds evaporative demand, water leaches through the soil, removing Ca 2+ and allowing accumulation of relatively immobile...

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water balance creates a threshold in soil pH at the global scale

Slessarev

Lin

Bingham

et al. 2016

Nature

437

255

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“…Wind speed and net radiation data were obtained from various reanalysis products and were bilinearly interpolated to a common resolution of 4 km. We also computed alternate PET and scPDSI records using data from the Climatic Research Unit version TS4.01 (Harris et al, 2014) and other observationally based gridded products to help characterize uncertainties in the anthropogenic contribution to the Pan‐Caribbean drought (Supporting Information S1), but they were not downscaled. Finally, the climate model outputs we used came from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5; Taylor et al, 2012).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exacerbation of the 2013–2016 Pan‐Caribbean Drought by Anthropogenic Warming

Herrera

Ault

Fasullo

et al. 2018

Geophysical Research Letters

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The Caribbean islands are expected to see more frequent and severe droughts from reduced precipitation and increased evaporative demand due to anthropogenic climate change. Between 2013 and 2016, the Caribbean experienced a widespread drought due in part to El Niño in 2015–2016, but it is unknown whether its severity was exacerbated by anthropogenic warming. This work examines the role of recent warming on this drought, using a recently developed high‐resolution self‐calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index data set. The resulting analysis suggest that anthropogenic warming accounted for ~15–17% of the drought's severity and ~7% of its spatial extent. These findings strongly suggest that climate model projected anthropogenic drying in the Caribbean is already underway, with major implications for the more than 43 million people currently living in this region.

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“…The data are distributed in a horizontal grid of 2.5° X 2.5° (latitude X longitude), with 37 vertical pressure levels, ranging from 1000 to 1 hPa. Monthly mean time series of precipitation and surface temperature at high resolution (0.5° X 0.5° grid) are obtained from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU) time series (TS) 3.21 dataset (Harris et al 2014). Time series for each field are detrended and the anomalous fields are computed with respect to the total climatology from 1958 to 2012, and then anomalies are composited for the identified La Nina events.…”

Section: B Data and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

The Stratospheric Pathway of La Niña

2016

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A Northern Hemisphere (NH) polar stratospheric pathway for La Nina events is established during win tertime based on reanalysis data for the 1958-2012 period. A robust polar stratospheric response is observed in the NH during strong La Nina events, characterized by a significantly stronger and cooler polar vortex. Significant wind anomalies reach the surface, and a robust impact on the North Atlantic-European (NAE) region is observed. A dynamical analysis reveals that the stronger polar stratospheric winds during La Nina winters are due to reduced upward planetary wave activity into the stratosphere. This finding is the result of destructive interference between the climatological and the anomalous La Nina tropospheric stationary eddies over the Pacific-North American region.In addition, the lack of a robust stratospheric signature during La Nina winters reported in previous studies is investigated. It is found that this is related to the lower threshold used to detect the events, which signature is consequently more prone to be obscured by the influence of other sources of variability. In particular, the occurrence of stratospheric sudden warmings (SSWs), partly linked to the phase of the quasi-biennial oscil lation, modulates the observed stratospheric signal. In the case of La Nina winters defined by a lower threshold, a robust stratospheric cooling is found only in the absence of SSWs. Therefore, these results highlight the importance of using a relatively restrictive threshold to define La Nina events in order to obtain a robust surface response in the NAE region through the stratosphere.

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Updated high‐resolution grids of monthly climatic observations – the CRU TS3.10 Dataset

Cited by 5,792 publications

References 26 publications

Water balance creates a threshold in soil pH at the global scale

Water balance creates a threshold in soil pH at the global scale

Exacerbation of the 2013–2016 Pan‐Caribbean Drought by Anthropogenic Warming

The Stratospheric Pathway of La Niña

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