Titan's diverse inventory of photochemically produced gases can be used as tracers to probe atmospheric circulation. Since the arrival of the Cassini-Huygens mission in July 2004 it has been possible to map the seasonal and spatial variations of these compounds in great detail. Here, we use 3.5 years of data measured by the Cassini Composite InfraRed Spectrometer instrument to determine spatial...

The regional climate model HIRHAM has been applied over the Asian continent from 0oN to 50oN and 42oE to 110oE to simulate the Indian monsoon circulation under past and present-day conditions. The model is driven at the lateral and lower boundaries by the atmospheric output fields of the global coupled Earth system model ECHAM5JSBACH/MPIOM for 44-years-long time slices during the mid-Holocene a...

We employ numerical models of Mars at spatial scales ranging from global to a few metres in order to investigate both the impact of increasing dust loading on atmospheric circulations and the role of different atmospheric circulation components on dust lifting, transport and on dust storm decay. Figure 1: Typical dust lifting events, relevant spatial scales and meteorological models suitable fo...

General circulation models (GCMs) of the global atmosphere are a key tool for climate research. They represent atmospheric dynamics, physics, and chemistry with mathematical equations, which are then solved on a threedimensional grid that spans the globe. Computer capabilities currently limit the grid resolutions in the global GCMs that are used to simulate Earth’s climate and make warming pred...

Parameterization of cloud-radiation interactions in an atmospheric general circulation model using a stochastic approach allows for a statistical representation of cloud field geometry. Previous work indicates that the stochastic approach to cloud-radiation parameterization performs better than typical plane-parallel algorithms in situations where the horizontal cloud fraction is between 0.2 an...

Interannual fluctuations in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) were considered. In the present study we analyze a mode of variability in the Hamburg Large-Scale Geostrophic ocean general circulation model which was driven by stochastic atmospheric forcing. The short-term atmospheric weather fluctuations were represented by a number of spatially coherent patterns of momentum, heat, and fres...

A low-order physical-biogeochemical climate model was used to project atmospheric carbon dioxide and global warming for scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The North Atlantic thermohaline circulation weakens in all global warming simulations and collapses at high levels of carbon dioxide. Projected changes in the marine carbon cycle have a modest impact on atmo...

Links between extreme wet conditions over East Africa and Indian Ocean sea surface temperatures (SST) are investigated during the core of the so-called short rain season in October–November. During periods of enhanced East African rainfall, Indian Ocean SST anomalies reminiscent of a tropical Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) event are observed. Ensemble simulations with an atmospheric general circulat...

We develop a simple model of the lower limb of the meridional overturning circulation in the Southern Ocean based on residual mean theory. We hypothesize that the strength of the lower limb (Ψ) is strongly controlled by the magnitude of abyssal diapycnal mixing (κ), and that of mesoscale eddy transfer (K). In particular, we argue that Ψ ∝ √ κK. The scaling and associated theory find support in ...

The thermohaline circulation (THC) affects the meridional atmospheric temperature gradient and therefore the atmospheric wind and the wind driven ocean circulation. The wind driven circulation (WDC), in turn, affects the THC by the advection of salinity anomalies into deep water formation sites. This paper considers this two way coupling between the WDC and THC, using tools from engineering fee...