Stephan Pfahl

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Pfahl

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Stephan

ORCID

0000-0002-9872-6090

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Publications 1 - 10 of 30

Stable water isotope signals in tropical ice clouds in the West African monsoon simulated with a regional convection-permitting model
De Vries, Andries-Jan; Aemisegger, Franziska; Pfahl, Stephan; et al. (2022)
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Tropical ice clouds have an important influence on the Earth's radiative balance. They often form as a result of tropical deep convection, which strongly affects the water budget of the tropical tropopause layer. Ice cloud formation involves complex interactions on various scales. These processes are not yet fully understood and lead to large uncertainties in climate projections. In this study, we investigate the formation of tropical ice clouds related to deep convection in the West African monsoon, using stable water isotopes as tracers of moist atmospheric processes. We perform convection-permitting simulations with the regional Consortium for Small-Scale Modelling isotope-enabled (COSMOiso) model for the period from June to July 2016. First, we evaluate our model simulations using space-borne observations of mid-tropospheric water vapour isotopes, monthly station data of precipitation isotopes, and satellite-based precipitation estimates. Next, we explore the isotope signatures of tropical deep convection in atmospheric water vapour and ice based on a case study of a mesoscale convective system (MCS) and a statistical analysis of a 1-month period. The following five key processes related to tropical ice clouds can be distinguished based on isotope information: (1) convective lofting of enriched ice into the upper troposphere, (2) cirrus clouds that form in situ from ambient vapour under equilibrium fractionation, (3) sedimentation and sublimation of ice in the mixed-phase cloud layer in the vicinity of convective systems and underneath cirrus shields, (4) sublimation of ice in convective downdraughts that enriches the environmental vapour, and (5) the freezing of liquid water just above the 0 °C isotherm in convective updraughts. Importantly, we note large variations in the isotopic composition of water vapour in the upper troposphere and lower tropical tropopause layer, ranging from below −800 ‰ to over −400 ‰, which are strongly related to vertical motion and the moist processes that take place in convective updraughts and downdraughts. In convective updraughts, the vapour is depleted by the preferential condensation and deposition of heavy isotopes, whereas the non-fractionating sublimation of ice in convective downdraughts enriches the environmental vapour. An opposite vapour isotope signature emerges in thin-cirrus cloud regions where the direct transport of enriched (depleted) vapour prevails in large-scale ascent (descent). Overall, this study demonstrates that isotopes can serve as useful tracers to disentangle the role of different processes in the West African monsoon water cycle, including convective transport, the formation of ice clouds, and their impact on the tropical tropopause layer.
Deuterium excess as a proxy for continental moisture recycling and plant transpiration
Aemisegger, Franziska; Pfahl, Stephan; Sodemann, Harald; et al. (2014)
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Studying the evaporation process and its link to the atmospheric circulation is central for a better understanding of the feedbacks between the surface water components and the atmosphere. In this study, we use 5 months of deuterium excess (d) measurements at the hourly to daily timescale from a cavity ring-down laser spectrometer to characterise the evaporation source of low-level continental water vapour at the long-term hydrometeorological monitoring site Rietholzbach in northeastern Switzerland. To reconstruct the phase change history of the air masses in which we measure the d signature and to diagnose its area of surface evaporation we apply a Lagrangian moisture source diagnostic. With the help of a correlation analysis we investigate the strength of the relation between d measurements and the moisture source conditions. Temporal episodes with a duration of a few days of strong anticorrelation between d and relative humidity as well as temperature are identified. The role of plant transpiration, the large-scale advection of remotely evaporated moisture, the local boundary layer dynamics at the measurement site and recent precipitation at the site of evaporation are discussed as reasons for the existence of these modes of strong anticorrelation between d and moisture source conditions. We show that the importance of continental moisture recycling and the contribution of plant transpiration to the continental evaporation flux may be deduced from the d–relative humidity relation at the seasonal timescale as well as for individual events. The methodology and uncertainties associated with these estimates of the transpiration fraction of evapotranspiration are presented and the proposed novel framework is applied to individual events from our data set. Over the whole analysis period (August to December 2011) a transpiration fraction of the evapotranspiration flux over the continental part of the moisture source region of 62% is found albeit with a large event-to-event variability (0% to 89%) for continental Europe. During days of strong local moisture recycling a higher overall transpiration fraction of 76% (varying between 65% and 86%) is found. These estimates are affected by uncertainties in the assumptions involved in our method as well as by parameter uncertainties. An average uncertainty of 11% results from the strong dependency of the transpiration estimates on the choice of the non-equilibrium fractionation factor. Other uncertainty sources like the influence of boundary layer dynamics are probably large but more difficult to quantify. Nevertheless, such Lagrangian estimates of the transpiration part of continental evaporation could potentially be useful for the verification of model estimates of this important land–atmosphere coupling parameter.
The Demographics of Water: A Review of Water Ages in the Critical Zone
Sprenger, Matthias; Stumpp, Christine; Weiler, Markus; et al. (2019)
Reviews of Geophysics
The time that water takes to travel through the terrestrial hydrological cycle and the critical zone is of great interest in Earth system sciences with broad implications for water quality and quantity. Most water age studies to date have focused on individual compartments (or subdisciplines) of the hydrological cycle such as the unsaturated or saturated zone, vegetation, atmosphere, or rivers. However, recent studies have shown that processes at the interfaces between the hydrological compartments (e.g., soil‐atmosphere or soil‐groundwater) govern the age distribution of the water fluxes between these compartments and thus can greatly affect water travel times. The broad variation from complete to nearly absent mixing of water at these interfaces affects the water ages in the compartments. This is especially the case for the highly heterogeneous critical zone between the top of the vegetation and the bottom of the groundwater storage. Here, we review a wide variety of studies about water ages in the critical zone and provide (1) an overview of new prospects and challenges in the use of hydrological tracers to study water ages, (2) a discussion of the limiting assumptions linked to our lack of process understanding and methodological transfer of water age estimations to individual disciplines or compartments, and (3) a vision for how to improve future interdisciplinary efforts to better understand the feedbacks between the atmosphere, vegetation, soil, groundwater, and surface water that control water ages in the critical zone.
A Lagrangian analysis of upper-tropospheric anticyclones associated with heat waves in Europe
Zschenderlein, Philipp; Pfahl, Stephan; Wernli, Heini; et al. (2020)
Weather and Climate Dynamics
This study presents a Lagrangian analysis of upper-tropospheric anticyclones that are connected to surface heat waves in different European regions for the period 1979 to 2016. In order to elucidate the formation of these anticyclones and the role of diabatic processes, we trace air parcels backwards from the upper-tropospheric anticyclones and quantify the diabatic heating in these air parcels. Around 25 %–45 % of the air parcels are diabatically heated during the last 3 d prior to their arrival in the upper-tropospheric anticyclones, and this amount increases to 35 %–50 % for the last 7 d. The influence of diabatic heating is larger for heat-wave-related anticyclones in northern Europe and western Russia and smaller in southern Europe. Interestingly, the diabatic heating occurs in two geographically separated air streams; 3 d prior to arrival, one heating branch (remote branch) is located above the western North Atlantic, and the other heating branch (nearby branch) is located over northwestern Africa and Europe to the southwest of the target upper-tropospheric anticyclone. The diabatic heating in the remote branch is related to warm conveyor belts in North Atlantic cyclones upstream of the evolving upper-level ridge. In contrast, the nearby branch is diabatically heated by convection, as indicated by elevated mixed-layer convective available potential energy along the western side of the matured upper-level ridge. Most European regions are influenced by both branches, whereas western Russia is predominantly affected by the nearby branch. The remote branch predominantly affects the formation of the upper-tropospheric anticyclone, and therefore of the heat wave, whereas the nearby branch is more active during its maintenance. For long-lasting heat waves, the remote branch regenerates. The results from this study show that the dynamical processes leading to heat waves may be sensitive to small-scale microphysical and convective processes, whose accurate representation in models is thus supposed to be crucial for heat wave predictions on weather and climate timescales.
Measuring variations of δ18O and δ2H in atmospheric water vapour using two commercial laser-based spectrometers
Aemisegger, Franziska; Sturm, Patrick; Graf, Pascal; et al. (2012)
Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
Variations of stable water isotopes in water vapour have become measurable at a measurement frequency of about 1 Hz in recent years using novel laser spectroscopic techniques. This enables us to perform continuous measurements for process-based investigations of the atmospheric water cycle at the time scales relevant for synoptic and mesoscale meteorology. An important prerequisite for the interpretation of data from automated field measurements lasting for several weeks or months is a detailed knowledge about instrument properties and the sources of measurement uncertainty. We present here a comprehensive characterisation and comparison study of two commercial laser spectroscopic systems based on cavity ring-down spectroscopy (Picarro) and off-axis integrated cavity output spectroscopy (Los Gatos Research). The uncertainty components of the measurements were first assessed in laboratory experiments, focussing on the effects of (i) water vapour mixing ratio, (ii) measurement stability, (iii) uncertainties due to calibration and (iv) response times of the isotope measurements due to adsorption-desorption processes on the tubing and measurement cavity walls. Based on the experience from our laboratory experiments, we set up a one-week field campaign for comparing measurements of the ambient isotope signals from the two laser spectroscopic systems. The optimal calibration strategy determined for both instruments was applied as well as the correction functions for water vapour mixing ratio effects. The root mean square difference between the isotope signals from the two instruments during the field deployment was 2.3‰ for δ2H, 0.5‰ for δ18O and 3.1‰ for deuterium excess. These uncertainty estimates from field measurements compare well to those found in the laboratory experiments. The present quality of measurements from laser spectroscopic instruments combined with a calibration system opens new possibilities for investigating the atmospheric water cycle and the land-atmosphere moisture fluxes.
A Lagrangian Perspective on Stable Water Isotopes During the West African Monsoon
Diekmann, Christopher J.; Schneider, Matthias; Knippertz, Peter; et al. (2021)
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
We present a Lagrangian framework for identifying mechanisms that control the isotopic composition of mid-tropospheric water vapor in the Sahel region during the West African Monsoon 2016. In this region mixing between contrasting air masses, strong convective activity, as well as surface and rain evaporation lead to high variability in the distribution of stable water isotopologues. Using backward trajectories based on high-resolution isotope-enabled model data, we obtain information not only about the source regions of Sahelian air masses, but also about the evolution of (Formula presented.) O and its isotopologue HDO (expressed as (Formula presented.) D) along the pathways of individual air parcels. We sort the full trajectory ensemble into groups with similar transport pathways and hydro-meteorological properties, such as precipitation and relative humidity, and investigate the evolution of the corresponding paired { (Formula presented.) O, (Formula presented.) } distributions. The use of idealized process curves in the { (Formula presented.) O, (Formula presented.) } phase space allows us to attribute isotopic changes to contributions from (a) air mass mixing, (b) Rayleigh condensation during convection, and (c) microphysical processes depleting the vapor beyond the Rayleigh prediction, i.e., partial rain evaporation in unsaturated and isotopic equilibration in saturated conditions. Different combinations of these processes along the trajectory ensembles are found to determine the final isotopic composition in the Sahelian troposphere during the monsoon. The presented Lagrangian framework is a powerful tool for interpreting tropospheric water vapor distributions. In the future, it will be applied to satellite observations of { (Formula presented.) O, (Formula presented.) } over Africa and other regions in order to better quantify characteristics of the hydrological cycle.
Warm conveyor belt activity over the Pacific: Modulation by the Madden-Julian Oscillation and impact on tropical-extratropical teleconnections
Quinting, Julian F.; Grams, Christian M.; Chang, Edmund Kar-Man; et al. (2024)
Weather and Climate Dynamics
Research in the last few decades has revealed that rapidly ascending airstreams in extratropical cyclones-so-called warm conveyor belts (WCBs)-play an important role in extratropical atmospheric dynamics. However on the subseasonal timescale, the modulation of their occurrence frequency, henceforth referred to as WCB activity, has so far received little attention. Also, it is not yet clear whether WCB activity may affect tropospheric teleconnection patterns, which constitute a source of predictability on this subseasonal timescale. Using reanalysis data, this study analyzes the modulation of WCB activity by the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO). A key finding is that WCB activity increases significantly over the western North Pacific when the convection of the MJO is located over the Indian Ocean. This increased WCB activity, which is stronger during La Niña conditions, is related to enhanced poleward moisture fluxes driven by the circulation of subtropical Rossby gyres associated with the MJO. In contrast, when the convection of the MJO is located over the western North Pacific, WCB activity increases significantly over the eastern North Pacific. This increase stems from a southward shift and eastward extension of the North Pacific jet stream. However, while these mean increases are significant, individual MJO events exhibit substantial variability, with some events even exhibiting anomalously low WCB activity. Individual events of the same MJO phase with anomalously low WCB activity over the North Pacific tend to be followed by the known canonical teleconnection patterns in the Atlantic-European region; i.e., the occurrence frequency of the positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is enhanced when convection of the MJO is located over the Indian Ocean and similarly for the negative phase of the NAO when MJO convection is over the western North Pacific. However, the canonical teleconnection patterns are modified when individual events of the same MJO phase are accompanied by anomalously high WCB activity over the North Pacific. In particular, the link between MJO and the negative phase of the NAO weakens considerably. Reanalysis data and experiments with an idealized general circulation model reveal that this is related to anomalous ridge building over western North America favored by enhanced WCB activity. Overall, our study highlights the potential role of WCBs in shaping tropical-extratropical teleconnection patterns and underlines the importance of representing them adequately in numerical weather prediction models in order to fully exploit the sources of predictability emerging from the tropics.
Water isotopic characterisation of the cloud–circulation coupling in the North Atlantic trades – Part 1: A process-oriented evaluation of COSMO_iso simulations with EUREC^4A observations
Villiger, Leonie; Dütsch, Marina; Bony, Sandrine; et al. (2023)
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Naturally available, stable, and heavy water molecules such as HDO and H218O have a lower saturation vapour pressure than the most abundant light water molecule H216O; therefore, these heavy water molecules preferentially condense and rain out during cloud formation. Stable water isotope observations thus have the potential to provide information on cloud processes in the trade-wind region, in particular when combined with high-resolution model simulations. In order to evaluate this potential, nested COSMOiso (isotope-enabled Consortium for Small Scale Modelling; ) simulations with explicit convection and horizontal grid spacings of 10, 5, and 1ĝ€¯km were carried out in this study over the tropical Atlantic for the time period of the EUREC4A (Elucidating the role of clouds-circulation coupling in climate; ) field experiment. The comparison to airborne in situ and remote sensing observations shows that the three simulations are able to distinguish between different mesoscale cloud organisation patterns as well as between periods with comparatively high and low rain rates. Cloud fraction and liquid water content show a better agreement with aircraft observations with higher spatial resolution, because they show strong spatial variations on the scale of a few kilometres. A low-level cold-dry bias, including too depleted vapour in the subcloud and cloud layer and too enriched vapour in the free troposphere, is found in all three simulations. Furthermore, the simulated secondary isotope variable d-excess in vapour is overestimated compared to observations. Special attention is given to the cloud base level, which is the formation altitude of shallow cumulus clouds. The temporal variability of the simulated isotope variables at cloud base agrees reasonably well with observations, with correlations of the flight-To-flight data as high as 0.7 for I2H and d-excess. A close examination of isotopic characteristics under precipitating clouds, non-precipitating clouds, clear-sky and dry-warm patches at the altitude of cloud base shows that these different environments are represented faithfully in the model with similar frequencies of occurrence, isotope signals, and specific-humidity anomalies as found in the observations. Furthermore, it is shown that the 2H of cloud base vapour at the hourly timescale is mainly controlled by mesoscale transport and not by local microphysical processes, while the d-excess is mainly controlled by large-scale drivers. Overall, this evaluation of COSMOiso, including the isotopic characterisation of different cloud base environments, suggests that the simulations can be used for investigating the role of atmospheric circulations on different scales for controlling the formation of shallow cumulus clouds in the trade-wind region, as will be done in part 2 of this study.
Quantifying free tropospheric moisture sources over the western tropical Atlantic with numerical water tracers and isotopes
Botsyun, Svetlana; Aemisegger, Franziska; Villiger, Leonie; et al. (2024)
Atmospheric Science Letters
Tropical free-tropospheric humidity plays a crucial role for the Earth's radiative balance and climate sensitivity. In addition to atmospheric humidity, stable water isotopes can provide important information about the hydrological cycle. We use the isotope- and water tagging-enabled version of the COSMOiso model to determine isotopic fingerprints of diagnosed moisture pathways over the western tropical Atlantic (WTA). A convection-permitting, high-resolution (5 km) nudged simulation is performed for January-February 2020. During this period, the target region is characterized by alternating large-scale circulation regimes with different humidity and isotope signatures. Moist conditions in the middle troposphere (300-650 hPa) are associated with moisture transport from the south, east, southeast, as well as evaporation from the North Atlantic, while dry conditions correspond to extratropical transport from the north and west. To predict the contribution of different moisture sources, we used a statistical model based on the local specific humidity and temperature as predictors and obtained an R-squared (R-2) of 0.52. Adding water isotopes improved the prediction (R-2 = 0.73), showing that isotopes provide unique information on moisture sources and transport patterns beyond conventional local observations.
Atmospheric processes triggering the central European floods in June 2013
Grams, Christian M.; Binder, Hanin; Pfahl, Stephan; et al. (2014)
Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
In June 2013, central Europe was hit by a century flood affecting the Danube and Elbe catchments after a 4 day period of heavy precipitation and causing severe human and economic loss. In this study model analysis and observational data are investigated to reveal the key atmospheric processes that caused the heavy precipitation event. The period preceding the flood was characterised by a weather regime associated with cool and unusual wet conditions resulting from repeated Rossby wave breaking (RWB). During the event a single RWB established a reversed baroclinicity in the low to mid-troposphere in central Europe with cool air trapped over the Alps and warmer air to the north. The upper-level cut-off resulting from the RWB instigated three consecutive cyclones in eastern Europe that unusually tracked westward during the days of heavy precipitation. Continuous large-scale slantwise ascent in so-called "equatorward ascending" warm conveyor belts (WCBs) associated with these cyclones is found as the key process that caused the 4 day heavy precipitation period. Fed by moisture sources from continental evapotranspiration, these WCBs unusually ascended equatorward along the southward sloping moist isentropes. Although "equatorward ascending" WCBs are climatologically rare events, they have great potential for causing high impact weather.

Publications 1 - 10 of 30

Stephan Pfahl

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