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Extreme weather and climate events are one of the greatest dangers for present-day society. Therefore, it is important to provide reliable statements on what changes in extreme events can be expected along with future global climate change. However, the projected overall response to future climate change is generally a result of a complex interplay between individual physical mechanisms originated within the different climate subsystems. Hence, a profound understanding of these individual contributions is required in order to provide meaningful assessments of future changes in extreme events. One aspect of climate change is the recently observed phenomenon of Arctic Amplification and the related dramatic Arctic sea ice decline, which is expected to continue over the next decades. The question to what extent Arctic sea ice loss is able to affect atmospheric dynamics and extreme events over mid-latitudes has received a lot of attention over recent years and still remains a highly debated topic.
In this respect, the objective of this thesis is to contribute to a better understanding on the impact of future Arctic sea ice retreat on European temperature extremes and large-scale atmospheric dynamics.
The outcomes are based on model data from the atmospheric general circulation model ECHAM6. Two different sea ice sensitivity simulations from the Polar Amplification Intercomparison Project are employed and contrasted to a present day reference experiment: one experiment with prescribed future sea ice loss over the entire Arctic, as well as another one with sea ice reductions only locally prescribed over the Barents-Kara Sea.% prescribed over the entire Arctic, as well as only locally over the Barent/Karasea with a present day reference experiment.
The first part of the thesis focuses on how future Arctic sea ice reductions affect large-scale atmospheric dynamics over the Northern Hemisphere in terms of occurrence frequency changes of five preferred Euro-Atlantic circulation regimes. When compared to circulation regimes computed from ERA5 it shows that ECHAM6 is able to realistically simulate the regime structures. Both ECHAM6 sea ice sensitivity experiments exhibit similar regime frequency changes. Consistent with tendencies found in ERA5, a more frequent occurrence of a Scandinavian blocking pattern in midwinter is for instance detected under future sea ice conditions in the sensitivity experiments. Changes in occurrence frequencies of circulation regimes in summer season are however barely detected.
After identifying suitable regime storylines for the occurrence of European temperature extremes in winter, the previously detected regime frequency changes are used to quantify dynamically and thermodynamically driven contributions to sea ice-induced changes in European winter temperature extremes.
It is for instance shown how the preferred occurrence of a Scandinavian blocking regime under low sea ice conditions dynamically contributes to more frequent midwinter cold extreme occurrences over Central Europe. In addition, a reduced occurrence frequency of a Atlantic trough regime is linked to reduced winter warm extremes over Mid-Europe. Furthermore, it is demonstrated how the overall thermodynamical warming effect due to sea ice loss can result in less (more) frequent winter cold (warm) extremes, and consequently counteracts the dynamically induced changes.
Compared to winter season, circulation regimes in summer are less suitable as storylines for the occurrence of summer heat extremes.
Therefore, an approach based on circulation analogues is employed in order to quantify thermodyamically and dynamically driven contributions to sea ice-induced changes of summer heat extremes over three different European sectors. Reduced occurrences of blockings over Western Russia are detected in the ECHAM6 sea ice sensitivity experiments; however, arguing for dynamically and thermodynamically induced contributions to changes in summer heat extremes remains rather challenging.
Planets outside our solar system, so-called "exoplanets", can be detected with different methods, and currently more than 5000 exoplanets have been confirmed, according to NASA Exoplanet Archive. One major highlight of the studies on exoplanets in the past twenty years is the characterization of their atmospheres usingtransmission spectroscopy as the exoplanet transits. However, this characterization is a challenging process and sometimes there are reported discrepancies in the literature regarding the atmosphere of the same exoplanet. One potential reason for the observed atmospheric inconsistencies is called impact parameter degeneracy, and it is highly driven by the limb darkening effect of the host star. A brief introductionto those topics in presented in chapter 1, while the motivation and objectives of thiswork are described in chapter 2.The first goal is to clarify the origin of the transmission spectrum, which is anindicator of an exoplanet’s atmosphere; whether it is real or influenced by the impactparameter degeneracy. A second goal is to determine whether photometry from space using the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), could improve on the major parameters, which are responsible for the aforementioned degeneracy, of known exoplanetary systems. Three individual projects were conducted in order toaddress those goals. The three manuscripts are presented, in short, in the manuscriptoverview in chapter 3.More specifically, in chapter 4, the first manuscript is presented, which is an ex-tended investigation on the impact parameter degeneracy and its application onsynthetic transmission spectra. Evidently, the limb darkening of the host star isan important driver for this effect. It keeps the degeneracy persisting through different groups of exoplanets, based on the uncertainty of their impact parameter and on the type of their host star. The second goal, was addressed in the second and third manuscripts (chapter 5 and chapter 6 respectively). Using observationsfrom the TESS mission, two samples of exoplanets were studied; 10 transiting inflated hot-Jupiters and 43 transiting grazing systems. Potentially, the refinement or confirmation of their major system parameters’ measurements can assist in solving current or future discrepancies regarding their atmospheric characterization.In chapter 7 the conclusions of this work are discussed, while in chapter 8 itis proposed how TESS’s measurements can be able to discern between erroneousinterpretations of transmission spectra, especially on systems where the impact parameter degeneracy is likely not applicable.