The response of climate to perturbations in GHGs is location dependent. Six experiments: control (CTRL); double CH4; double CO2; double N2O; halved CFC11 and halved CFC12 were carried out to reveal the local area response to different GHGs levels in the atmosphere over West Africa. Double CH4, CO2 and N2O generally induce wetness but they also induce localized dryness at the hilly and mountaino...

The response of climate to perturbations in GHGs is location dependent. Six experiments: control (CTRL); double CH4; double CO2; double N2O; halved CFC11 and halved CFC12 were carried out to reveal the local area response to different GHGs levels in the atmosphere over West Africa. Double CH4, CO2 and N2O generally induce wetness but they also induce localized dryness at the hilly and mountaino...

At biome-scale, terrestrial carbon uptake is controlled mainly by weather variability. Observational data from a global monitoring network indicate that the sensitivity of terrestrial carbon sequestration to mean annual temperature (T) breaks down at a threshold value of 16°C, above which terrestrial CO₂ fluxes are controlled by dryness rather than temperature. Here we show that since 1948 warm...

reproduced by historical simulations with anthropogenic and natural forcings, but are absent if only natural forcings are considered, pointing to new potential fingerprints of anthropogenic warming. These results suggest a fundamental pattern of global warming over land that depend on the dryness of ecosystems in midand lowlatitudes, likely reflecting primarily the first order large-scale therm...

This study investigates the temporal and spatial variation of soil moisture associated with global warming as simulated by long-term integrations of a coupled ocean-atmosphere model conducted earlier. Starting from year 1765, integrations of the coupled model for 300 years were performed for three scenarios: increasing greenhouse gases only, increasing sulfate-aerosol loading only and the combi...

In this paper, we investigate changes in the Hadley Circulation (HC) and their connections to increased global dryness (suppressed rainfall and reduced tropospheric relative humidity) under CO2 warming from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) model projections. We find a strengthening of the HC manifested in a "deep-tropics squeeze" (DTS), i.e., a deepening and narrowing of th...

Based on the homogenized data set, we analyze changes in mean temperature and some extreme temperature indices over China since 1961 and especially during the recent warming hiatus period (1998–2012) in a global average context. The result shows that the decrease of annual mean maximum has contributed most to the decreases in overall mean temperature and in diurnal temperature range (DTR) durin...

Here I analyze the observed and projected surface temperature anomalies over land between 50°S-50°N for the period 1950-2099 by large-scale ecoregion and find strongest warming consistently and persistently seen over driest ecoregions such as the Sahara desert and the Arabian Peninsula during various 30-year periods, pointing to desert amplification in a warming climate. This amplification enha...

Rising atmospheric dryness [vapor pressure deficit (VPD)] can limit photosynthesis and thus reduce vegetation productivity. Meanwhile, plants benefit from global warming the fertilization effect of carbon dioxide (CO2). There are growing interests to study climate change impacts on terrestrial vegetation. However, productivity responses recent CO2 trends remain be fully understood. Here, we pro...