Cause, conseguenze e strategie di mitigazione Proponiamo il primo di una serie di articoli in cui affronteremo l’attuale problema dei mutamenti climatici. Presentiamo il documento redatto, votato e pubblicato dall’Ipcc - Comitato intergovernativo sui cambiamenti climatici - che illustra la sintesi delle ricerche svolte su questo tema rilevante.

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Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.

Climate change 2014 - Synthesis Report

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive presentation and interpretation of the Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) and its numerical implementation. The EnKF has a large user group, and numerous publications have discussed applications and theoretical aspects of it. This paper reviews the important results from these studies and also presents new ideas and alternative interpretations which further explain the success of the EnKF. In addition to providing the theoretical framework needed for using the EnKF, there is also a focus on the algorithmic formulation and optimal numerical implementation. A program listing is given for some of the key subroutines. The paper also touches upon specific issues such as the use of nonlinear measurements, in situ profiles of temperature and salinity, and data which are available with high frequency in time. An ensemble based optimal interpolation (EnOI) scheme is presented as a cost-effective approach which may serve as an alternative to the EnKF in some applications. A fairly extensive discussion is devoted to the use of time correlated model errors and the estimation of model bias.

The Ensemble Kalman Filter: Theoretical formulation and practical implementation

Global sea levels have risen through the 20th century. These rises will almost certainly accelerate through the 21st century and beyond because of global warming, but their magnitude remains uncertain. Key uncertainties include the possible role of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets and the amplitude of regional changes in sea level. In many areas, nonclimatic components of relative sea-level change (mainly subsidence) can also be locally appreciable. Although the impacts of sea-level rise are potentially large, the application and success of adaptation are large uncertainties that require more assessment and consideration.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/328/5985/1517.full.pdf

Sea-Level Rise and Its Impact on Coastal Zones

[1] EGM2008 is a spherical harmonic model of the Earth's gravitational potential, developed by a least squares combination of the ITG-GRACE03S gravitational model and its associated error covariance matrix, with the gravitational information obtained from a global set of area-mean free-air gravity anomalies defined on a 5 arc-minute equiangular grid This grid was formed by merging terrestrial, altimetry-derived, and airborne gravity data Over areas where only lower resolution gravity data were available, their spectral content was supplemented with gravitational information implied by the topography EGM2008 is complete to degree and order 2159, and contains additional coefficients up to degree 2190 and order 2159 Over areas covered with high quality gravity data, the discrepancies between EGM2008 geoid undulations and independent GPS/Leveling values are on the order of ±5 to ±10 cm EGM2008 vertical deflections over USA and Australia are within ±11 to ±13 arc-seconds of independent astrogeodetic values These results indicate that EGM2008 performs comparably with contemporary detailed regional geoid models EGM2008 performs equally well with other GRACE-based gravitational models in orbit computations Over EGM96, EGM2008 represents improvement by a factor of six in resolution, and by factors of three to six in accuracy, depending on gravitational quantity and geographic area EGM2008 represents a milestone and a new paradigm in global gravity field modeling, by demonstrating for the first time ever, that given accurate and detailed gravimetric data, asingle global model may satisfy the requirements of a very wide range of applications

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2011JB008916

The development and evaluation of the Earth Gravitational Model 2008 (EGM2008)

Seasonal variability in ocean bottom pressure p b is analyzed using GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) data products and an optimized model solution obtained by fitting most available ocean data in a least-squares sense. The annual cycle in the spatial mean is a substantial part of the observed seasonal p b variability; net freshwater input and atmospheric pressure effects are both important. For the residual spatially-varying patterns, GRACE and model results agree well over the Southern Ocean where strongest variability at both annual and semiannual periods is present. Phase patterns tend to match well, although model amplitudes are generally weaker. Considerable uncertainty remains in both GRACE and model p b fields, judging from the spread among available estimates. Improving the p b estimates requires removal of data noise from aliasing and leakage of land hydrology signals, and further optimization of the ocean model, including possible use of GRACE data to constrain the solution.

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A comparison of model and GRACE estimates of the large-scale seasonal cycle in ocean bottom pressure

This document reports on recent advances in the development of the adjoint code generator OpenAD/F. We give an overview of the software design, and we discuss case studies that illustrate the feasibility of adjoint code generation. Our main target application is the MIT General Circulation Model - a numerical model designed for study of the atmosphere, ocean, and climate.

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Adjoint code by source transformation with openad/f

The optimal excitation of Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC) anomalies is investigated in an ocean general circulation model with an idealized configuration The optimal three-dimensional spatial structure of temperature and salinity perturbations, defined as the leading singular vector and generating the maximum amplification of MOC anomalies, is evaluated by solving a generalized eigenvalue problem using tangent linear and adjoint models Despite the stable linearized dynamics, a large amplification of MOC anomalies, mostly due to the interference of nonnormal modes, is initiated by the optimal perturbations The largest amplification of MOC anomalies, found to be excited by high-latitude deep density perturbations in the northern part of the basin, is achieved after about 75 years The anomalies grow as a result of a conversion of mean available potential energy into potential and kinetic energy of the perturbations, reminiscent of baroclinic instability The time scale of growth of MOC anomalies can be understood by examining the time evolution of deep zonal density gradients, which are related to the MOC via the thermal wind relation The velocity of propagation of the density anomalies, found to depend on the horizontal component of the mean flow velocity and the mean density gradient, determines the growth time scale of the MOC anomalies and therefore provides an upper bound on the MOC predictability time The results suggest that the nonnormal linearized ocean dynamics can give rise to enhanced MOC variability if, for instance, overflows, eddies, and/or deep convection can excite high-latitude density anomalies in the ocean interior with a structure resembling that of the optimal perturbations found in this study The findings also indicate that errors in ocean initial conditions or in model parameterizations or processes, particularly at depth, may significantly reduce the Atlantic MOC predictability time to less than a decade

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Patrick Heimbach

Papers

A comparison of model and GRACE estimates of the large-scale seasonal cycle in ocean bottom pressure

Adjoint code by source transformation with openad/f

Optimal Excitation of Interannual Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation Variability

Consistency and fidelity of Indonesian-throughflow total volume transport estimated by 14 ocean data assimilation products

ECCO Version 4 Release 3