The impact of a potential future fleet of supersonic aircraft on contrail coverage and contrail radiative forcing is investigated by means of simulations with the general circulation model ECHAM4.L39(DLR) including a contrail parameterization. The model simulations consider air traffic inventories of a subsonic fleet and of a combined fleet of suband supersonic aircraft for the years 2025 and 2...

BACKGROUND The close relationship between human health, performance, well-being and the thermal environment is obvious. Nevertheless, most studies of climate and climate change impacts show amazing shortcomings in the assessment of the environment. Populations living in different climates have different susceptibilities, due to socio-economic reasons, and different customary behavioural adaptat...

Total column ozone is used to trace the dynamics of the lower and middle stratosphere which is governed by planetary waves. In order to analyse the planetary wave activity a Harmonic Analysis is applied to global multi-year total ozone observations from the Total Ozone Monitoring Spectrometer (TOMS). As diagnostic variables we introduce the hemispheric ozone variability indices one and two. The...

Climate is one of the main drivers of species distribution. However, as different environmental factors tend to co-vary, the effect of climate cannot be taken at face value, as it may be either inflated or obscured by other correlated factors. We used the favourability models of four species (Alytes dickhilleni, Vipera latasti, Aquila fasciata and Capra pyrenaica) inhabiting Spanish mountains a...

Radiative fluxes in the ECHAM5 general circulation model (GCM) are evaluated using both surface and satellite based observations. The fluxes at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) are generally in good agreement with the satellite data. Larger deviations in simulated cloud forcing are found especially at lower latitudes where the shortwave component within the intertropical convergence zone is over...

Future shifts in climatic conditions may impact watershed mercury (Hg) dynamics and transport. An ensemble of watershed models was applied in the present study to simulate and evaluate the responses of hydrological and total Hg (THg) fluxes from the landscape to the watershed outlet and in-stream THg concentrations to contrasting climate change projections for a watershed in the southeastern co...

The effects of increasing sea surface temperature (SST) and aerosol loading in a drought region in Southern China are studied using aerosol optical depth (AOD), low-level cloud cover (LCC), visibility, and precipitation from observed surface data; wind, temperature, specific humidity, and geopotential height from the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis fields; and SST from the NOAA archive data. The results s...