Observing and Monitoring the Climate System
Near-Term (Fiscal Year 2009)Plans

Observing and Monitoring the Climate System

Overview

Recent Accomplishments

Near-Term Plans

CCSP / USGCRP Observations and Monitoring Working Group Members

For long term plans, see Observing and Monitoring the Climate System chapter of the Strategic Plan for the Climate Change Science Program (2003) posted on CCSP web site.

Past Accomplishments:

Recent

Fiscal Year 2007

Fiscal Year 2006

Fiscal Years 2004-2005

Climate Change Science Program.  FY 2008 Scientific Research Budget by USGCRP Research Element

HIGHLIGHTS OF PLANS FOR FY 2009

CCSP will continue to develop and implement integrated systems for observing and monitoring global change, and the associated data management and information systems. Selected key planned activities for FY 2009 and beyond follow.

Global Climate and Ocean Observing Systems. FY 2009 priorities for advancing the atmospheric and ocean observing components of GCOS include: (1) reducing the uncertainty in the carbon inventory of the global ocean, sea-level change, and sea surface temperature; (2) continuing support for existing in situ atmospheric networks in developing nations; and (3) planning for surface and upper air GCOS reference observations consistent with CCSP Synthesis and Assessment Product 1.1. As such, the global ocean observing system will make incremental advances, building up to 62% completion: 50 surface drifters will be equipped with salinity sensors for satellite validation and salinity budget calculations, particularly in the polar regions; a new reference array will be added across the Atlantic basin to measure changes in the ocean’s overturning circulation, an indicator of possible abrupt climate change; a pilot U.S. coastal carbon observing network will enter sustained service to help quantify North American carbon sources and sinks and to measure ocean acidification caused by CO2 sequestration in the ocean; and dedicated ships will be deployed to target deployments of Argo and surface drifters in undersampled regions of the world oceans. Finally, planning activities will continue on developing a GCOS Reference Upper Air Network (GRUAN) to aid in enhancing the quality of upper tropospheric and lower stratospheric water vapor measurements at a subset of present GCOS Upper Air Network stations.

These activities will address Goals 12.3 and 12.5 of the CCSP Strategic Plan.

Extended Examination and Intercomparison of Water Vapor Measurements from Aircraft, Balloons, and Satellites. Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, exhibiting large gradients in concentration and mixing ratio between the Earth’s surface and the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (UT/LS). Fitting in with the GRUAN planning work, understanding changes in the distribution of water vapor, whether due to natural or anthropogenic causes, is essential to understanding the potential for climate change. Even small increases in stratospheric water vapor (1% per year) could cause significant surface radiative forcing and stratospheric cooling. Stratospheric water vapor amounts are controlled by dehydration processes driven by low temperatures in the tropopause region of the tropics. Understanding of the dehydration process and its variability is incomplete. Of particular importance is the extent and frequency of icesupersaturated conditions in the UT/LS. These shortfalls in knowledge have made accurate and precise water vapor measurements in the tropopause region a required component of future climate research, particularly at the low water vapor mixing ratios in the UT/LS where measurement discrepancies currently exist. A number of research efforts will be continued or initiated to help resolve the observed discrepancies in in situ water vapor observations. CCSP agencies are jointly conducting these activities with the involvement of U.S. and international investigators from a wide range of government and academic institutions. The planned efforts include: (1) single instrument laboratory studies designed to better characterize and understand instrument performance and calibration under a variety of atmospheric conditions; (2) the possible selection and use of a water vapor calibration standard to establish and/or confirm measurement accuracy and precision; and (3) multiple-instrument intercomparisons in the laboratory and field involving an independent referee to coordinate and present the results of each formal laboratory and flight intercomparison that includes instruments from different research groups. Field intercomparisons will include aircraft-, balloon-, and satellite-borne instruments.

These activities will address Goals 12.3 and 12.5 of the CCSP Strategic Plan.

International Polar Year Observations. The United States will conduct aircraft flights over the North Slope of Alaska to measure temperature, humidity, total particle number, aerosol size distribution, cloud condensation nuclei concentration, ice nuclei concentration, optical scattering and absorption, vertical velocity, cloud liquid water and ice contents, cloud droplet and crystal size distributions, cloud particle shape, and cloud extinction. These data, coupled with ground-based measurements, will be used to evaluate model simulations of Arctic climate. The CALIPSO lidar and CloudSat radar are providing satellite measurements of the difficult-to-observe polar clouds. The last of these capabilities will also directly support IPY activities.

CCSP researchers will begin analysis of data from a series of FY 2008 airborne field campaigns addressing Arctic climate. These analyses of data from aircraft flights, ground measurements, and satellites will contribute to a larger international effort called POLARCAT (Polar Study using Aircraft, Remote Sensing, Surface Measurements, and Models of Climate, Chemical Aerosols, and Transport). Spring observations will be analyzed to assess the long-range transport of anthropogenic pollution to the Arctic and its contribution to Arctic haze and tropospheric ozone chemistry. Summer observations will be analyzed to assess boreal fire emissions. These analyses will ultimately improve the ability of current models to simulate the influence of anthropogenic pollution and boreal fires on the Arctic atmosphere and climate as it relates to changing atmospheric composition, radiative forcing of trace gases and aerosols, and aerosol-cloud interactions.

Finally, two U.S. Climate Reference Network systems will be deployed at the Russian arctic sites of Tiksi (72.5°N) and Yakutsk (63.0°N) in order to provide longterm reference measurements of temperature, precipitation, wind, pressure, and surface radiation in support of IPY and beyond.

These activities will address Goals 12.3 and 12.5 of the CCSP Strategic Plan.

Surface-Based Measurements of Aerosols and Clouds. AERONET retrievals of atmospheric particulate absorption will continue to be utilized in climate forcing studies and in the validation of current and future satellite missions, such as the Glory satellite (early 2009 launch), which will measure aerosol light absorption from space. Network expansion will continue, with a focus on inadequately sampled regions that are important for understanding global climate change, such as China (both the polluted eastern regions and the western deserts that are a source of dust storms). An experimental effort is underway to investigate the possibility of measuring sunlight reflected off the moon to make aerosol measurements at night. In addition, an experimental algorithm is under development to make measurements of atmospheric CO2.

In the future, lidar data will be used to study the influence of polar stratospheric clouds on ozone formation over the South Pole, to study Arctic haze impacts on polar climate, and to generate climatological aerosol and cloud properties at several MPLNET sites. To enhance data value, MPL instrument improved. In addition, several new MPLNET data products will be made available to the research community.

These activities will address Goals 12.1 and 12.5 of the CCSP Strategic Plan.

Solar Variability: Glory. The Glory mission is planned to launch in 2009. It will carry a Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) based on the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) TIM design, with the same high-precision phase-sensitive detection capability. Glory will also carry an Aerosol Polarimeter Sensor (APS), which will improve the ability to distinguish among aerosol types by measuring the polarization state of reflected sunlight. Both TIM and APS will provide key measurements beginning in 2009 during the minimum of solar cycle 24. This less-active portion of the 11-year solar cycle is especially crucial in estimating any long-term trends in solar output—a key to understanding the 20th-century context of global change, as the Sun is the single entirely “external” forcing of the climate system that is unaffected by climate change itself.

These activities will address Goals 12.1 and 12.5 of the CCSP Strategic Plan.

Global Precipitation Measurement Mission. Motivated by the successes of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite and recognizing the need for a more comprehensive global precipitation measuring program, NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency conceived a new Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission that is still in the formulation phase. A fundamental scientific goal of GPM is to make substantial improvements in global precipitation observations, especially in terms of measurement accuracy, sampling frequency, spatial resolution, and coverage, thus extending TRMM’s rainfall time series. To achieve this goal, the mission will consist of a constellation of low-Earth-orbiting satellites carrying various passive and active microwave measuring instruments. The GPM mission will be used to address important issues central to improving the predictions of climate, weather, and hydrometeorological processes; to stimulate operational forecasting; and to underwrite an effective public outreach and education program, including near-real-time dissemination of televised regional and global rainfall maps. Assessment of how natural and anthropogenic aerosols affect precipitation variability (and therefore the water cycle) is a complex and important problem. The capability to monitor the diurnal cycle of rainfall globally with GPM is expected to enable significantly improved understanding of the links between aerosols, climate variability, weather changes, hydrometeorological anomalies, and small-scale cloud macrophysics and microphysics.

These activities will address Goals 12.1 and 12.5 of the CCSP Strategic Plan.

Aquarius. Aquarius is a satellite mission to measure global sea surface salinity. Its instruments will measure changes in sea surface salinity over the global oceans to a precision of 2 parts in 10,000 (equivalent to about 1/6 of a teaspoon of salt in 1 gallon of water). By measuring global sea surface salinity with good spatial and temporal resolution, Aquarius will answer long-standing questions about how the oceans respond to climate change and the water cycle, including changes in freshwater input and output to the ocean associated with precipitation, evaporation, ice melting, and river runoff. Aquarius is a collaboration between NASA and the Comison Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), the Argentine space agency, with an expected launch date in 2009.

These activities will address Goals 12.1 and 12.5 of the CCSP Strategic Plan.

Ocean Surface Topography Mission. The accurate, climate-quality record of sea surface topography measurements, started in 1992 with TOPography EXperiment (TOPEX)/Poseidon and continued in 2001 by the Jason satellite mission, will be extended with the Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM). These missions have provided accurate estimates of regional sea-level change and global sea-level rise unbiased by the uneven distribution of tide gauges. Ocean topography measurements from these missions have elucidated the role of tides in ocean mixing and maintaining deep ocean circulation. Further, quantitative determination of ocean heat storage from satellite measurements together with measurements from the Argo global array of temperature/salinity profiling floats have confirmed climate model predictions of the Earth’s energy imbalance that is primarily due to greenhouse gas forcing. The high levels of absolute accuracy and cross calibration make these missions uniquely suited for climate research. OSTM is a collaboration among NASA, NOAA, the French space agency Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).

These activities will address Goals 12.1 and 12.5 of the CCSP Strategic Plan.

Orbiting Carbon Observatory. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) is a new mission, expected to launch in 2008, that will provide the first dedicated, space-based measurements of atmospheric CO2 (total column) with the precision, resolution, and coverage needed to characterize carbon sources and sinks on regional scales and to quantify their variability. Analyses of OCO data will regularly produce precise global maps of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere that will enable more reliable projections of future changes in the abundance and distribution of atmospheric CO2 and studies of the effect that these changes may have on Earth’s climate.

These activities will address Goals 12.2 and 12.5 of the CCSP Strategic Plan.

Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). IOOS is the U.S. coastal observing component of GOOS and is envisioned as a coordinated national and international network of observations, data management, and analyses that systematically acquires and disseminates data and information on past, present, and future states of the oceans. A coordinated IOOS effort has been established by CCSP via a national IOOS Program Office co-located with the <Ocean.US> consortium of offices consisting of NASA, NSF, NOAA, and the Navy (see <ocean.us>). The IOOS observing subsystem employs both remote and in situ sensing. Remote sensing includes satellite-, aircraft- and land-based sensors, power sources, and transmitters. In situ sensing includes platforms (ships, buoys, gliders, etc.), in situ sensors, power sources, sampling devices, laboratory-based measurements, and transmitters.

These activities will address Goals 12.3 and 12.6 of the CCSP Strategic Plan.

OBSERVING AND MONITORING THE CLIMATE SYSTEM CHAPTER REFERENCES

1)  Eck, T.F., B.N. Holben, J.S. Reid, A. Sinyuk, O. Dubovik, A. Smirnov, D. Giles, N.T. O’Neill, S.-C. Tsay, Q. Ji, A. Al Mandoos, M. Ramzan Khan, E.A. Reid, J.S. Schafer,M. Sorokine, W. Newcomb, and I. Slutsker, 2008: Spatial and temporal variability of column-integrated aerosol optical properties in the southern Arabian Gulf and United Arab Emirates in summer. Journal of Geophysical Research, 113, D01204, doi:10.1029/2007JD008944.

2)  Welton, E.J., J.R. Campbell, J.D. Spinhirne, and V.S. Scott, 2001: Global monitoring of clouds and aerosols using a network of micro-pulse lidar systems. In: Lidar Remote Sensing for Industry and Environmental Monitoring [Singh, U.N., T. Itabe, and N. Sugimoto (eds.)]. Proceedings of SPIE, 4153, 151-158.

3)  Chiu, J.C., A. Marshak, W.J. Wiscombe, S.C. Valencia, and E.J. Welton, 2007: Cloud optical depth retrievals from solar background signals of micropulse lidars. IEEE Geosciences and Remote Sensing Letters, 4, 456-460.

4)  Schmid, B., R. Ferrare, C. Flynn, R. Elleman, D. Covert, A. Strawa, E. Welton, D. Turner, H. Jonsson, J. Redemann, J. Eilers, K. Ricci, A.G. Hallar, M. Clayton, J. Michalsky, A. Smirnov, B. Holben, and J. Barnard, 2006: How well do state-of-the-art techniques measuring the vertical profile of tropospheric aerosol extinction compare? Journal of Geophysical Research, 111, D05S07, doi:10.1029/2005JD005837.

5)  McFarlane, S.A. and W.W. Grabowski, 2007: Optical properties of shallow tropical cumuli derived from ARM ground-based remote sensing. Geophysical Research Letters, 34, L06808, doi:10.1029/2006GL028767.

6)  McFarlane, S.A, J.H. Mather, and T.P. Ackerman, 2007: Analysis of tropical radiative heating profiles: A comparison of models and observations. Journal of Geophysical Research, 112, D14218, doi:10.1029/2006JD008290.

7)  Prenni, A.J., J.Y. Harrington, M. Tjernstrom, P.J. Demott, A. Avramov, C.N. Long, S.M. Kreidenweis, P.Q. Olsson, and J. Verlinde, 2007: Can ice-nucleating aerosols affect arctic seasonal climate? Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 88(4), 541-550.

8)  Lubin, D. and A.M. Vogelmann, 2007: Expected magnitude of the aerosol shortwave indirect effect in springtime Arctic liquid water clouds. Geophysical Research Letters, 34(11), L11801, doi:10.1029/2006GL028750.

9)  Hume,T. and C. Jakob, 2007: Ensemble single column model validation in the tropical western Pacific. Journal of Geophysical Research, 112(D10), D10206, doi:10.1029/2006JD008018.

10)  McFarquhar, G.M., J. Um, M. Freer, D. Baumgardner, G.L. Kok, and G. Mace, 2007: Importance of small crystals to cirrus properties: Observations from the Tropical Warm Pool International Cloud Experiment (TWP-ICE). Geophysical Research Letters, 34, L13803, doi:10.1029/2007GL029865.

11)  McFarquhar, G.M., G. Zhang, M.R. Poellot, G.L. Kok, R. McCoy, T. Tooman, A. Fridlind, and A.J. Heymsfield, 2007: Ice properties of single layer stratocumulus during the Mixed-Phase Arctic Cloud Experiment (M-PACE): Part I. Observations. Journal of Geophysical Research, 112, D24201, doi:10.1029/2007JD008633.

12)  IPCC, 2007: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K. B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H. L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 1-18.

13)  Xu, K-M., T. Wong, B.A. Wielicki, L. Parker, B. Lin, Z.A. Eltzen, and M. Branson, 2007: Statistical analyses of satellite cloud object data from CERES. Journal of Climate, 20, 819-842.

14)  Loeb, N.G., B.A. Wielicki, W. Su, K. Loukachine, W. Sun, T. Wong, K.J. Priestley, G. Matthews, W.F. Miller, and R. Davies, 2007: Multi-instrument comparison of top-of-atmosphere reflected solar radiation. Journal of Climate, 20(3), 575-591.

15)  Kato, S., N.G. Loeb, P. Minnis, J.A. Francis, T.P. Charlock, D.A. Rutan, E.E. Clothiaux, and S. Sun-Mack, 2006: Seasonal and interannual variations of top-of-atmosphere irradiance and cloud cover over polar regions derived from the CERES data set. Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L19804, doi:10.1029/2006GL026685.

16)  Wang, X. and J. Key, 2005: Arctic surface, cloud, and radiation properties based on the AVHRR Polar Pathfinder data set. Journal of Climate, 18(14), 2575-2593.

17)  Francis, J.A., E. Hunter, J. Key, and X. Wang, 2005: Clues to variability in Arctic minimum sea ice extent. Geophysical Research Letters, 32, L21501, doi:10.1029/2005GL024376.

FOOTNOTES

a) Global laboratory inter-comparison data are presently posted at <qasac-americas.org> and may be displayed by clicking on the “Data” link and then on “Ring Diagram Assessments.”