Stefan Kröpelin has carved out a career where few dare to tread — in the heart of the Sahara.

Original Source

Clouds’ efficiency at reflecting solar radiation and trapping the terrestrial radiation is strongly modulated by the diurnal cycle of clouds (DCC). Much attention has been paid to mean cloud properties due to their critical role in climate projections; however, less research has been devoted to the DCC. Here we quantify the mean, amplitude, and phase of the DCC in climate models and compare them with satellite observations and reanalysis data.

Original Source

Extreme large-scale North American cold events are associated with strong undulations in the tropospheric jet stream which bring cold polar air southward over the continent. Here we propose that these jet undulations are associated with the North American part of the Circumglobal Teleconnection Pattern—a pair of zonally oriented waves of zonal wave number 5 which are in zonal quadrature with each other. While the Pacific/North American pattern is associated with the first circumglobal wave pattern, North American extreme cold events are associated with the second pattern.

The Eliassen–Palm flux and Plumb wave activity flux are calculated using the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts interim reanalysis daily dataset to determine the propagation of Rossby waves before a North American cold wave in January 2014. The results show that the upward wave activity fluxes mainly come from planetary waves 1 and 2, which provide a stable circulation background for the influence of the subplanetary-scale waves 3 and 4.

Original Source

Noble gases trapped in ice cores are used to show that the mean global ocean temperature increased by 2.6 degrees Celsius over the last glacial transition and is closely correlated with Antarctic temperature.