Wild Martin
Simulation of Global Climate and Climate Change at ETH
Project Number: CH-1955
| Project Type: | Coordinating_Project |
| Project Duration: | 1/1/92 - ? |
| Funding Source: | ETH , |
| Project Leader: | Dr. Martin Wild Teamleader global climate modelling Global Climate Institut für Atmosphäre und Klima (IAC) ETH Zürich ETH Zentrum, CHN Universitätsstr. 16 8092 Zürich Phone: +41 (0) 44 632 82 78 ; +41 (0) 44 633 27 55 FAX: +41 (0) 44 633 10 58 e-Mail: martin.wild@env.ethz.ch http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/wild |
Keywords:
Global Change, Climate change, Global Climate Modeling, Greenhouse effect,
sea level rise, global dimming,global brightening
Abstract:
Starting in 1991, ETHZ has been engaged in the field of global climate modeling, in close cooperation with the Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg. In this framework, the General Circulation model ECHAM has been installed at the Swiss Center for Scientific Computing CSCS and used in numerous numerical experiments. Simulations of both present day climate and climate changes scenarios have been conducted, with a unprecedently high horizontal resolution of 1.1 degrees globally.
The core expertise and main focus of ETHZ is related to the investigation of the radiation budget and the surface energy fluxes in General Circulation models (GCM). Initially focusing on the ECHAM model, these investigation were expanded to the other European GCMs in the context of the EU Project HIRETYCS, and now include all major GCMs due to the participation in AMIP II (Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project)and the IPCC AR4 model intercomparison project. Further emphazis is put on climate change simulations under greenhouse warming. The focus is here on the evolution the Earth's energy and water budget, the changes in polar climates and mass balance of the polar ice sheets and related effects on global sea-level, and on regional climate change (Europe/Alps). Climate change scenarios have also been performed in the context of different EU projects and in project GLOBCLIM of the National Centre for Research in Climate (NCCR Climate).
Further research focuses on the sunlight at the earth surface, which after decades of decrease (“global dimming“), has recovered since the mid 1980s ("global brightening"). Sunlight reaching the Earth surface is the primary energy source for life on our planet and a key element of climate change. Whereas global dimming could have partially counter-balanced the increasing greenhouse effect prior to the 1980s, this masking of the greenhouse effect and related impacts may have no longer been effective thereafter, enabling the greenhouse signals to become more evident during the 1990s. The ability of the latest generations of GCMs to reproduce these effects is investigated.
Publications:
Wild, M., Ohmura, A., Gilgen, H., and Roeckner, E., 1995a: Validation of GCM simulated radiative fluxes using surface observations. J. Climate, 8, 1309-1324.
Wild, M., Ohmura, A., Gilgen, H., and Roeckner, E., 1995b: Regional climate simulation with a high resolution GCM: surface radiative fluxes. Climate Dynamics, 11, 469-486.
Marinucci, M. R., Giorgi, F., Beniston, M., Wild, M., Tschuck, P., Ohmura, A., and Bernasconi, A., 1995: High Resolution Simulations of January and July Climate over the Western Alpine Region with a nested Modeling System. Theor. Appl. Climatol., 51, 119-138.
Wild, M., Dümenil, L., and Schulz, J.P., 1996: Regional climate simulation with a high resolution GCM: surface hydrology. Climate Dynamics, 12, 755-774.
Ohmura, A., Wild, M., and Bengtsson, L. 1996a: A possible change in mass balance of greenland and antarctic ice sheets in the coming century. J. Climate, 8, 2124-2135.
Ohmura, A., Wild, M., and Bengtsson, L. 1996b: Present and future mass balance of the ice sheets simulated with GCM. Ann. Glaciol., 23, 187-193.
Wild, M., Ohmura, A., and Cubasch, U., 1997: GCM simulated surface energy fluxes in climate change experiments. J. Climate, 10, 3093-3110.
Van den Broeke, M., van de Wal, R., and Wild, M., 1997: Representation of Antarctic katabatic winds in a high-resolution GCM and a note on their climatic sensitivity. J. Climate, 10, 3111-3130.
Rotach, M., Marinucci, M.R., Wild, M., Tschuck, P., Ohmura, A., and Beniston, M., 1997: Nested regional simulation of climate change over the Alps for the scenario of a doubled greenhouse forcing. Theor. Appl. Climatol., 57, 209-228.
Wild, M., and Liepert, B., 1998: Excessive transmission of solar radiation through the cloud-free atmosphere in GCMs. Geophys. Res. Lett., 25, 2165-2168.
Wild, M., Ohmura, A., Gilgen, H., Roeckner, E., Giorgetta, M., and Morcrette, J.J., 1998: The disposition of radiative energy in the global climate system: GCM versus observational estimates. Climate Dynamics, 14, 853-869.
Wild, M., Ohmura, A., Gilgen, H., and Morcrette, J.J., 1998b: The distribution of solar energy at the earth's surface as calculated in the ECMWF re-analysis. Geophys. Res. Lett., 25, 4373-4376.
Cusack, S., Slingo, A., Edwards, J.M., and Wild, M., 1998: The radiative impact of a simple aerosol climatology on the Hadley centre atmospheric GCM. Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc., 124, 2517-2526.
Gilgen, H., Wild, M., and Ohmura, A., 1998: Means and trends of shortwave irradiance at the surface estimated from Global Energy Balance Archive Data. J. Climate, 11, 2042-2061.
Ohmura, A., Dutton, E., Forgan, B., Froehlich, C., Gilgen, H., Hegner, H., Heimo, A., Koenig-Langlo, G., McArthur, B., Mueller, G., Philipona, R., Pinker, R., Whitlock, C. and Wild, M., 1998: Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN/WCRP), a new precision radiometry for climate research, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 79, 2115-2136.
Schaer, C., Davies, T.D. , Frei, C. , Wanner, H., Widmann, M., Wild, M. and Davies, H.C., 1998: Current Alpine Climate. In: Cebon, P., Dahinden, U., Davies, H.C., Imboden, D.M., Jäger, C. (Eds): Views from the Alps: Regional perspectives on climate change. MIT press, Boston, 21-72.
Wild, M., and Ohmura, A., 1999: The role of clouds and the cloud-free atmosphere in the problem of underestimated absorption of solar radiation in GCM atmospheres. Phys. Chem. Earth (B), 24, 261-268.
Garratt, J.R., O'Brian, D.M., Dix, M.R., Murphy, J.M., Stephens, G.L., and Wild, M., 1999: Surface radiation fluxes in transient climate simulations. Glob. Planet. Change, 20, 33-55.
Roesch, A., Gilgen, H., Wild, M., and Ohmura, A., 1999: Assessment of GCM simulated snow albedo using direct observations. Climate Dynamics, 15, 405-418.
Ohmura, A., Calanca, P., Wild, M., and Aklin, M., 1999: Precipitation, accumulation and mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet. Zeitschrift für Gletscherkunde und Glaziologie, 35, 1-20.
Wild, M., 1999: Discrepancies between model-calculated and observed atmospheric shortwave absorption in areas with high aerosol loadings. J. Geophys. Res., 104 (D22), 27361-27371.
Wild, M., 2000a: Absorption of solar energy in cloudless and cloudy atmospheres over Germany and in GCMs. Geophys. Res. Lett., 27, 959-962.
Wild, M., 2000b: Underestimation of GCM-calculated shortwave atmospheric absorption in areas affected by biomass burning. In: Biomass burning and its inter-relationships with the climate system, edited by J.L. Innes, M. Benistion and M.M. Verstraete. Advances in Global Change Research Vol. 3. Kluwer academic publishers, Dordrecht, 127-149.
Wild, M., and Ohmura, A., 2000: Changes in mass balance of the polar ice sheets and sea level from high resolution GCM simulations of global warming. Annals Glaciol., 30, 197-203.
Schneeberger, C., Albrecht, O., Blatter, H., Wild, M., and Hoeck, R., 2001: Störglaciaren in doubling CO2 climate. Climate Dynamics, 17, 825-834.
van de Wal, R., Wild, M., and de Wolde, J., 2001: Short term volume changes of the Greenland ice sheet in response to doubled CO2 conditions. Tellus, 53B, 94-102.
Wild, M., Ohmura, A., Gilgen, H., Morcrette, J.J., and Slingo, A., 2001: Downward longwave radiation in General Circulation Models. J. Climate, 14, 3227-3239.
Roesch, A., Wild, M., Gilgen, H., and Ohmura, A., 2001: A new snow cover fraction parameterization for the ECHAM GCM. Climate Dynamics, 15, 405-418.
Van de Wal, R., and Wild, M., 2001: Modelling the response of glaciers to climate change, applying volume-area scaling in combination with a high resolution GCM. Climate Dynamics, 18, 359-366.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2001: Climate Change: The scientific basis. IPCC third assessment report. M. Wild contributing author Chapter 7 (Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks), Chapter 8 (Model evaluation), Chapter 10 (Regional Climate Simulation - Evaluation and Projections), Chapter 11 (sea level change), Cambridge university press, 944pp.
Wild, M., and Cechet, R., 2002: Downward longwave radiation in GCMs: a case study at a semi-arid continental site. Tellus, 54A, 330-337.
Roesch, A., Wild, M., Pinker, R., and Ohmura, A., 2002: Comparison of spectral surface albedos and their impact on the general circulation model simulated surface climate. J. Geophys. Res., 107, No. D16.
Sheppard, R., and Wild, M., 2002: Simulated turbulent fluxes over land from General Circulation Models and Reanalyses compared with observations. Int. J. Climatology, 22, 1235 – 1247.
Ohmura, A., and Wild, M., 2002: Is the hydrological Cycle accelerating? Science, 298, 1345-1346.
Wild, M., Calanca, P., Scherrer, S., and Ohmura, A., 2003: Effects of polar ice sheets on global sea level in high resolution greenhouse scenarios. J. Geophys. Res., 108 (D5), 10.1029/2002JD002451
Schneeberger, C., Blatter, H., Abe-Ouchi A., and Wild, M., 2003: Modelling Changes in the Mass Balance of Glaciers of the Northern Hemisphere for a 2xCO2 Scenario. Journal of Hydrology, 282, 145-163.
Philipona, R, Dürr, B., Marty, C. Ohmura, A., and Wild, M., 2004: Radiative forcing - measured at Earth’s surface -corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L03202 10.1029/2003GL01876.
Huybrechts, P., Gregory, J., Janssens, I., and Wild, M., 2004: Modelling Antarctic and Greenland volume changes during the 20 th and 21 st centuries forced by GCM time slice integrations. Global and Planetary Change, 42, 83 –105.
Wild, M., Ohmura, A., Gilgen, H., and Rosenfeld, D., 2004: On the consistency of trends in radiation and temperature records and implications for the global hydrological cycle. Geophys. Res. Lett, 31, doi: 10.1029/2003GL019188
Wild, M., and Ohmura, A., 2004: BSRN Longwave Downward Radiation Measurements Combined with GCMs show Promise for Greenhouse Detection Studies, GEWEX News, 14 (4), 9-10.
Raschke, E., Ohmura, A., Rossow, W.B., Carlson, B.E., Zhang, Y.-C., Stubenrauch , C., Kottek, M., and Wild, M., 2004: Cloud effects on the radiation budget based on ISCCP data (1991 to 1995), Int. J. of Climatology, 25, 1103-1125.
Wild, M., Gilgen, H., Roesch, A., Ohmura, A., Long, C., Dutton, E., Forgan, B., Kallis, A., Russak, V., Tsvetkov, A., 2005: From dimming to brightening: Decadal changes in solar radiation at the Earth’s surface. Science , 308, 847-850.
Wild, M., 2005: Solar radiation budgets in atmospheric model intercomparisons from a surface perspective, Geophys. Res. Lett, 32, doi:10.1029/2005GL022421.
Ramanathan V., Chung C., Kim D., Bettge T., Buja L., Kiehl J. T., Washington W.M., Fu Q., Sikka D.R., and Wild, M., 2005: Atmospheric brown clouds: Impacts on South Asian climate and hydrological cycle, PNAS, 102, 5326-5333.
Wild, M., Long, C.N., and Ohmura, A., 2005: Evaluation of clear-sky solar fluxes in GCMs participating in AMIP and IPCC-AR4 from a surface perspective, J. Geophys. Res. (in press).
Last update: 9/27/05
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