Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI): An - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI): An Overview of its current Status and Studies in Northern Asia

Pavel Y. Groisman1 Garik Gutman2 Vladimir M. Kattsov3 and Richard G. Lawford4

• 1. UCAR at NOAA NCDC, Asheville, NC, United States
• 2. NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC USA
• 3. VMGO, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation
• 4. U. Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

PART 1

Why the research in Northern Eurasia is expedient

• 3.5
• 2.5
• 1.5
• 0.5

0.5 1.5 2.5 3.5 1875 1890 1905 1920 1935 1950 1965 1980 1995 2010

Temperature anomalies, K

Years "globe" Northern Eurasia, north of 40N

1955

• 0.4
• 0.2

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Global Surface Air Temperature Anomalies, °C

Rates of increase of annual temperature for the “globe” (60°S to 90°N) and Northern Eurasia are 0.91 °C/ 130 yr and 1.5°C/ 130yr respectively. (Lugina et al 2007, updated).

2010

Budyko and Vinnikov 1976: Global Warming

Annual ¡surface ¡air ¡temperature ¡area-­‑averaged ¡

• ver ¡the ¡60°N ¡-­‑ ¡90°N ¡la;tudinal ¡zone ¡(Arc;c) ¡ ¡

Linear trend for the entire period of instrumental observations is 1.73°C/130 yr but there were periods (e.g., 1936-2004) when there was no statistically significant linear trend (Groisman et al. 2006, updated).

2010 ¡ dT/dt = 1.33°C/100yrs; R² = 0.44

• 2
• 1.5
• 1
• 0.5

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 1880 ¡ 1900 ¡ 1920 ¡ 1940 ¡ 1960 ¡ 1980 ¡ 2000 ¡ 2020 ¡

Decrease in surface air temperature meridional gradients

• ver the Northern Hemisphere estimated as a difference of

tropical mean zonal temperature (zone 0°- 30°N) and polar mean zonal temperature (zone 60°N - 90°N).

For Northern Eurasia climate, zonal heat and water vapor transport are of critical importance.

Winter

Autumn sea ice extent changes (%)

Source: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/ Terra-­‑MODIS ¡RGB, ¡July-­‑ Sept ¡2008, ¡250 ¡m ¡ resolu;on. ¡Cloud ¡free ¡

• composite. ¡(Trishchenko ¡

et ¡al ¡2009). ¡ ¡Please, ¡note ¡ large ¡areas ¡of ¡ice-­‑free ¡ water ¡in ¡the ¡Arc;c ¡during ¡ this ¡three-­‑months-­‑long ¡

• season. ¡ ¡

Arctic Sea Ice Extent Anomalies, Sept. (%)

What is going now?

Sea Ice Extent on July 4, 2011 Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent Anomalies (%) in June 2011

Changes of the maximum snow water equivalent over Russia

Zone, region Change in 1967-2009

• Arctic

No changes

• Fields of European Russia,

north of 55°N Increase by 4 to 6%/10yr

• Southeast of “-”-”-”-”-”-” (ER) Decrease by 4.5%/10yr
• Steppe-forest steppe of ER No changes
• Fields of West Siberia Increase by 6%/10yr
• Central East Siberia

Slight increase

• South of East Siberia

No changes

• Fields of Russian Far East Increase by 3 to 6%/10yr

Archive of Lugina et al. 2007, updated

Northern Asia, north of 40°N

Winter temperature anomalies for the past 130 years, 1951-1975 reference period dT/dt= 2.35K/130 yrs; R² = 0.17

• 7
• 5
• 3
• 1

1 3 5 7 1875 1890 1905 1920 1935 1950 1965 1980 1995 2010 Temperature anomalies, K

Years

Winter

dT/dt = 2.35 K/130 yrs; R2 = 0.29

• 7
• 5
• 3
• 1

1 3 5 7

1875 1890 1905 1920 1935 1950 1965 1980 1995 2010 Temperature anomalies, K Years

Asia north of 40N

Spring temperature changes over North Asia

dT/dt = 2.22 K/130 yrs; R2 = 0.17

• 7
• 5
• 3
• 1

1 3 5 7 1875 1890 1905 1920 1935 1950 1965 1980 1995 2010 Temperature anomalies, K Years

Asia north of 60N

Temperature anomalies (°C) from the mean for the 1951-1975 reference period. Archive of Lugina et al. 2007, updated

Snow cover extent from NOAA satellites for 1967-2011. NOAA NCDC 2011: State of the Climate Global Analysis April 2011. [ Available at

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/index.php?report=global&year=2011month=apr ]

April ¡ ¡snow ¡cover ¡extent ¡anomalies ¡over ¡Eurasia ¡

D is defined as a spring date when mean daily temperature stably passes 5°C (nationwide mean D-date is ~ May 25th). During the past four decades changes in D have not matched with changes in the dates when the snowmelt start (defined as a late winter date when mean daily temperature stably passes -5°C; nationwide mean date is ~April 15th).

Area-averaged dates of the spring

• nset over Russia

Begin of the no-frost season in Siberia

Dates when daily minimum temperature sustainably crosses 0°C in spring and remains above it

1936-2010; dD/dt = -0.6 days/10yr; R² = 0.14 1966-2010; dD/dt = -1.7 days/10yr; R² = 0.34

140 145 150 155 160 165 170 1930 ¡ 1940 ¡ 1950 ¡ 1960 ¡ 1970 ¡ 1980 ¡ 1990 ¡ 2000 ¡ 2010 ¡ Julian days May 30

Summary of the cold season changes

During the past 130 years, the annual surface air temperature in Northern Eurasia has increased by 1.5°C (over Northern Asia by 1.8°C and in the winter season by 3°C). The late summer sea ice extent decreased by 40% exposing a near-infinite source of water vapor for the dry Arctic atmosphere in early cold season months.

• As a result of these changes, (a) in autumn the dates of the
• nset of snow cover have not changed noticeably despite

the strong temperature increase in this season; (b) in late spring, snow cover extent has decreased, retreating by 1 to 2 weeks earlier during the past 40 years; (c) in the cold season maximum snow depth and SWE (at open areas) have increased over most of Russia; and (d) more early and devastating floods were documented in Siberia.

• In the western half of Eurasian continent days with thaw

became more frequent. For example, in Fennoscandia in the second half of the 20th century, the number of days with winter thaw increased by 6 days in 50 years, or by 35% changing the winter season as it has been known.

The mean seasonal net surface radiation budget, W m-2

(Stackhouse 2004)

July total net irradiance (solar net + thermal infrared net)

The 22 year average from the NASA/GEWEX Surface Radiation Budget project. Courtesy of Paul Stackhouse Jr. and Colleen Mikovitz, NASA Langley Research Center

Archive of Lugina et al. 2006, updated

dT/dt = 0.78 K/130 yrs; R2 = 0.24

• 2
• 1

1 2 3

1875 1890 1905 1920 1935 1950 1965 1980 1995 2010

Temperature anomalies, K

Years

Summer

Northern Asia, north of 40°N

Summer temperature anomalies for the past 130 years; 1951-1975 reference period ¡ ¡ ¡

Number of days with “hot” nights (when minimum daily surface air temperatures remain above 23.9°C) area-averaged over European Russia south of 60°N during the 1891-2009 period. This number for 2010 exceeds 5.

Duration of the no-frost period Central Siberia, south of 55°N

dD/dt = 14 days (100 yr)-1; or 13%(100 yr)-1; R² = 0.31

70 80 90 100 110 120 130

1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

D a y s

Water (0),Tundra (1), forest-tundra (2), darkleaf taiga (3) and lightleaf taiga (4), forest-steppe (5), steppe (6), semidesert (7), and polar desert (8).

Biome distribution over Siberia in current (a) and 2090 (b) climates (Vygodskaya et al. 2007)

More humid conditions (blue), more dry conditions (red), more agricultural droughts (circled), more prolonged dry episodes (rectangled).

Changes in the surface water cycle over Northern Eurasia that have been statistically significant in the 20th century Groisman et al 2009 (Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc.)

DYNAMICS OF FIRES NUMBERS AND BURNED AREA (PROTECTED TERRITORY OF RUSSIA)

Korovin and Zukkert 2003, updated

Intense fire in a Pinus sylvestris forest, resulting in a likely conversion to steppe

• Left, no regeneration after several years;

right, no regeneration after 20 years (Siberia) Tchebakova et al. (2009)

Landscape after forest fires

• Thawing of ice-rich permafrost, triggered by forest fire in

Central Yakutia, transforms boreal forest into steppe-like habitats (photo by Vladimir Romanovsky)

Water (0),Tundra (1), forest-tundra (2), darkleaf taiga (3) and lightleaf taiga (4), forest-steppe (5), steppe (6), semidesert (7), and polar desert (8).

Biome distribution over Siberia in current (a) and 2090 (b) climates (Vygodskaya et al. 2007)

Air temperatures of January and July in the Peninsula area were 2-4°С and 1-2°С higher, respectively (Nikolskaya 1982),

Larch wood remnants at Pionerskaya rivulet, the Khatanga River, Taymyr Peninsula. Climatic Optimum of Holocene (6000-6500 years BP)

Picture by M.M. Naurzbaev

Why we have to be expedient in our research?

Firstly: the changes are already here and they have been large!

Secondly,

• We are facing a non-linearity in environmental and

climatic changes in Northern Eurasia right now due to

– Dramatic retreat of the Arctic sea Ice that is causing

• rampaged coastal erosion (up to 10 m yr-1)
• additional source of heat and moisture in early winter

– Impact on the World Ocean thermohaline circulation due to changes in the fresh water inflow into the Arctic Ocean – Feedbacks to the global carbon budget & climate due to

• Permafrost thaw, including release of carbon (both, methane

and CO2) stored in the frozen Arctic shelf and coast

• Wetlands transformation
• Land cover changes and
• Ecosystems shift

PART 2

Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI) as an answer to the challenges of climatic and environmental changes

NEESPI Study Area includes: Former Soviet Union, Northern China, Mongolia, Fennoscandia, & Eastern Europe

NEESPI is an interdisciplinary program of internationally- supported Earth systems and science research that addresses large-scale and long-term manifestations of climate and environmental change.

NEESPI duration ~ 10 years (started in 2004)

The ¡ NEESPI ¡ Study ¡ Area ¡

http://neespi.org ¡

Background

• Six years ago NEESPI was established to address

large-scale and long-term manifestations of climate and environmental change in Northern Eurasia (http://neespi.org). This web site contains the NEESPI history, presentations at the NEESPI past conferences, the NEESPI Science Plan (260 pp.) and its Executive Summary (18 pp.; also dubbed in 2007 as a refereed publication in the Special NEESPI issue of “Global and Planetary Change”).

• The NEESPI domain is shown in the map.
• NEESPI Science Plan includes elements of

WCRP, IGBP, IHDP и DIVERSITAS.

NEESPI Recognition

• NEESPI is widely recognized and endorsed by several Earth

System Science Partnership (ESSP) programmes and projects: the International Geosphere and Biosphere Programme, the World Climate Research Programme through the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment and Climate and Cryosphere Projects, the Global Water System Project, Global Carbon Project, Global Land Project, and the Integrated Land Ecosystem—Atmosphere Processes Study and become an entity in intergovernmental collaboration plans in the United States, Russia, and Ukraine.

First phase foci of NEESPI were monitoring and analyses. After the NEESPI Workshop in August 2007 at the Aspen Global Change Institute, a new course was accepted towards strengthening of the NEESPI research focus on projections, i.e., focus on modeling

Efforts are made to blend modern RCMs with vegetation, carbon flux, permafrost, hydrological, and dust production models within a North Eurasia modeling suite and link it to the MIT Earth System model.

Domain of the VMGO RCM with 25 km spatial resolution, Shkolnik 2009.

Zhuang 2009 Wood et al. 2009 Shuman et al. 2009 Tchebakova 2009 Sokolov 2009

During the past 4 years, ~30 dedicated NEESPI Workshops and 8 NEESPI Open Science Sessions at the International Meetings were convened and more than 500 papers and books were published. The past year was extremely productive in the NEESPI outreach. Several PhD students defended their theses in 2010 while working within the NEESPI framework. In 2010, more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and/or book chapters were published or are in press (this list is still incomplete and is anticipated to increase; cf., http://neespi.org/science/NEESPI_publications.pdf

NEESPI Outreach, http://neespi.org

In particular: A suite of 34 peer-reviewed NEESPI articles were published in the third Special NEESPI Issue in Environ. Res. Lett. (2009, No. 4, and 2010, No. 1). Several books and White Papers were published by Springer (Balzter, ed., 2010; Gutman and Reissell, eds., 2011), the National Academy of Science of Ukraine (Lyalko, 2010), and FAO (Mátyás, 2010).

Completed ¡and ¡ongoing ¡NEESPI ¡Projects ¡by ¡ country ¡(or ¡group ¡of ¡countries), ¡June ¡2011 ¡

65 49 16 5 4 2

Total 141 Projects

All US Agencies All Russian Agencies All EU Agencies All Japanese Agencies All Chinese Agencies Canada

Ac;ve ¡Projects ¡per ¡year ¡

0 ¡ 20 ¡ 40 ¡ 60 ¡ 80 ¡ 100 ¡ 2005 ¡ 2006 ¡ 2007 ¡ 2008 ¡ 2009 ¡ 2010 ¡ NASA ¡ Other ¡Agencies/Countries ¡ Total ¡

NEESPI Meetings & Sessions in the past 12 months

June 14-18, 2010, Miedzyzdroje, Poland. International Science Conferences on BALTEX Studies 5-11 July, 2010, Tomsk, Russia. ENVIROMIS Conference 25-28 August, 2010, Tartu, Estonia and Valmiera, Latvia. Conference “Monitoring Land Cover and Land Use in Boreal and Temperate Europe” 16-19 November, 2010, Kyiv, Ukraine. NEESPI Session at the “Global and Regional Climate Changes” Conference December 2010, San-Francisco, 2010. NEESPI Session at the Fall Annual AGU Meeting. April 3-8, 2011 , Vienna, Austria. NEESPI Session at the Annual EGU Assembly May 22-227, 2011, Makuhari, Chiba-City, Japan, NEESPI Session at the Annual JpGU Meeting Two of these Workshops (in Valmiera and Tomsk) were accompanied by the Early Career Scientists Summer Schools. Numerous research proposals to national and international funding agencies were conceived at these gatherings.

Current ¡ac;vi;es ¡in ¡2011: ¡

• Book “Environmental Changes in Siberia: Regional Changes and

their Global Consequences” ¡is in preparation

• The 4th NEESPI Special issue Environ. Res. Lett. is being composed

from papers of presenters at the 2010 NEESPI meetings, workshops, and open sessions [up to mid-June 2011] NEESPI Sessions/Conferences in 2011:

• July 3-13, 2011, Tomsk, Russia. "CITES 2011" Event (International

Conference and Young Scientists School on Computational Information Technologies for Environmental Sciences)

• July 18-20, 2011, Kaifeng, China Workshop on Dryland Ecosystems in the

NEESPI/MAIRS Domains

• August 15-21, 2011, Krasnoyarsk, Russia. International Boreal Forest

Research Association (IBFRA), Science Conference

• December 2011, San Francisco, USA, NEESPI Session at the Annual Fall

AGU Meeting. NASA LCLUC 2011 Call (two-phase selection process is on the way).

A book in the final stage of preparation Environmental Changes in Siberia: Regional Changes and their Global Consequences”.

• Introduction
• Information systems for environmental studies
• Climate change
• Water cycle changes
• Effect of Cryosphere Changes on Infrastructure
• Terrestrial ecosystems and their changes
• Human dimensions of land cover and land use changes
• Atmospheric pollution
• Integration and Synthesis

Hybrid land cover map of Russia

Schepaschenko, Shvidenko, McCallum

MODIS-Terra NDVI displayed in GoogleEarth for the summer (JJA 2009) generated by Giovanni-NEESPI Leptoukh and Shen

An Integrated Mapping and Analysis System with Application to Siberia; http://NEESPI.sr.unh.edu

Annual changes in major components of water balance (1936-2000) for sub- basins located across the six largest Eurasian Arctic rivers (Shiklomanov et al. 2009)

Net Ecosystem Carbon Balance for 2009, g C m-2 y-1 (Shvidenko et al. 2011)

Map of the Norilsk impact zone based on July and October 2001 MODIS composites: 1) Severely damaged area, 2) Moderately damaged area, 3) Industrial area and technogeniceous desert, 4) Spruce dominated stands, 5) Larch dominated stands, 6) Tundra, 7) Water bodies, 8) Mountains.

Mean June wet deposition pattern of the Norilsk- Nickel emissions of sulfates (Vinogradova 2011)

Open Call to the Annual AGU Meeting, 5-9 December 2011

• Abstract deadline: August 4, 2011
• Deadline for applications for financial

support for students: August 4, 2011

• NEESPI Session: GC16 “Environmental,

socio-economic and climatic changes in Northern Eurasia and their feedbacks to the Global Earth System: The Role of Remote Sensing and Integrative Studies “.

Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative

FOR MORE INFORMATION SEE THE NEESPI WEB SITE: http://neespi.org

Side Note: “NEESPI” is pronounced approximately like the Russian phrase for

“Don’t sleep “

Thank you!

dT/dt = 1.95 K/130 yrs; R2 = 0.27

• 7
• 5
• 3
• 1

1 3 5 7

1875 1890 1905 1920 1935 1950 1965 1980 1995 2010

Temperature anomalies, K

Years

Summer Archive of Lugina et al. 2007, updated

Northern Asia, north of 60°N

Summer temperature anomalies for the past 130 years; 1951-1975 reference period ¡ ¡ ¡

April sea ice extent changes. Northern Hemisphere Extent Anomalies up to 2011 (%)

Source: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

Network of Russian meteorological stations in 2010

Vorkuta Region (Oberman, 2007) Urengoy (Drozdov, 2008) Nadym (Moskalenko, 2008)

Slide is a courtecy of

• Prof. V. Romanovsky

Methane bubble release from the seabed in the East Siberian Sea (Shakhova et al. 2009).

Gas-charged sediments and bubble clouds in the water column Bubble clouds in the water column

Sea depth~50m

Slide is a courtecy of Dr. N. Shakhova

Changes in January surface air temperature. The Arctic becomes warmer by up to 40° C but the latitudinal belt south of 60°N becomes colder by up to 8°C.

Newson 1973; Nature, 241, 39-40

One of the first UCMO GCM sensitivity experiments with polar ice replaced by water at 0°C

NEESPI Statistics

• Throughout its duration, NEESPI served and is serving

as an umbrella for more than 140 individual research projects (always with an international participation) with an annual budget close to 15 million US dollars (cf., Figure on the left, where international NEESPI projects are grouped by the major national funding source). More than 680 scientists from more than 200 institutions of 30 countries worked or are working under the Initiative umbrella.

• A new crop of NEESPI projects was launched in 2010

to compensate for the projects that have been completed and the total number of the ongoing NEESPI projects (76) changed but slightly compared to its peak (87 in 2008).

Specialty models (or a configuration of models) and/or recent results of their application within the NEESPI domain

• VMGO Regional Climate Model (Shkolnik et al. 2008, 2010)
• Russian Global NWP Model SL-AV at RAS Inst. of Numerical Math. and

Hydrometcentre of Russia (Prof. Mikhail Tolstykh, 2009, Personal Communication)

• MIT Earth System Model (Sokolov et al. 2009)
• Coupled regional modeling system WRF-DuMO (Darmenova et al. 2009)
• Coupling of VMGO RCM with Siberian Biospheric Model (Tchebakova et
• al. 2009)
• Permafrost Dynamic Model (Marchenko et al. 2008)
• Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (Zhuang et al. 2009)
• Application of GAP model driven by in situ data (Shuman et al. 2009)
• Specialty modifications to the VIC Model (Wood, Troy, et al. 2009) and

the WBMPlus at Univ. of New Hampshire (Shiklomanov et al. 2007, 2009) to simulate/project the changes in the water cycle in the cold regions

Pan-Arctic Ocean Drainage

Runoff changes in the deltas of three major Siberian

• rivers. Observations and future projections

Lammers and Shiklomanov (2009) Slide is a courtecy of

• Dr. A. Shiklomanov

Dry episodes above 30 days during the warm season, 1950-2009

dN/dt ¡= ¡0.5/10yr; ¡R² ¡= ¡0.06 ¡

0 ¡ 5 ¡ 10 ¡ 15 ¡ 20 ¡

1940 ¡ 1950 ¡ 1960 ¡ 1970 ¡ 1980 ¡ 1990 ¡ 2000 ¡ 2010 ¡ 2020 ¡

European Russia, south of 60ºN

NEESPI Data Distribution

• NEESPI keeps promoting the data exchange

among the NEESPI participants via the existing NEESPI Science and Data Support Centers in Russia, China, and the United States. The results

• f this data exchange materialized in a new set of

publications and conference presentations that are currently using these data.

• A stellar addition to the NEESPI data distribution Services

in 2010, became a new Data Analysis and Exploring System for Hydrology of the NEESPI domain developed by the Water Systems Analysis Group at University of New Hampshire – Durham (http://neespi.sr.unh.edu/maps/). An unrestricted web-based access to the System makes it a useful tool for any hydrological assessment within Northern Eurasia.