Long term trends in the climate system are always partly obscured by naturally occurring interannual variability.All else being equal, the larger the natural variability is, the less precisely one can estimate a trend in a timeseriesof data. Measurement uncertainty, though, also obscures long term trends. We derive how measurement uncertaintyand natural interannual variability interact in...
Publications
Leroy, S. S., J. G. Anderson, and G. Ohring (2008), Climate signal detection times and constraints on climate benchmark accuracy requirements,J. Clim., 21, 841 – 846, doi:10.1175/2007JCLI1946.1.
Leroy, Stephen, James Anderson, John Dykema, Richard Goody, 2008: Testing Climate Models Using Thermal Infrared Spectra. J. Climate, 21, 1863–1875. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2007JCLI2061.1
An approach to test climate models with observations is presented. In this approach, it is possible to directly observe the longwave feedbacks of the climate system in time series of annual average outgoing longwave spectra. Tropospheric temperature, stratospheric temperature, water vapor, and carbon dioxide have clear and distinctive signatures in the infrared spectrum, and it is possible to...
Leroy, S.S., J.A. Dykema, and J.G. Anderson, “Scalar prediction in climate using data and model,” Submitted to J. Climate (2008).
Scalar detection in climate change research, having taken the form of optimal detection/linear multi-pattern regression, has been used in the recent past to detect multiple climate signals in the presence of natural inter- annual variability and associate those signals with specific causes. It has been applied to many climate observables to show high probabilities of human influence on climatic...
Gero P J, Dykema J A and Anderson J G 2008 A blackbody design for SI-traceable radiometry for earth observation J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol. 25 2046–54
Spaceborne measurements pinned to international standards are needed to monitor the earth’s climate,quantify human influence thereon, and test forecasts of future climate change. The International System ofUnits (SI, from the French for Système International d’Unités) provides ideal measurement standards forradiometry as they can be realized anywhere, at any time in the future. The challenge is...
E.J. Moyer, D.S. Sayres, G.S. Engel, J.M.St. Clair, F.N. Keutsch, N.T. Allen, J.H. Kroll, J.G. Anderson, Design considerations in high-sensitivity off-axis integrated cavity output spectroscopy. Phys. B 92, 467 (2008)
CT Off-axis integrated cavity output spectroscopy(OA-ICOS) has generated much interest because it potentially allows highly sensitive field measurements with robustoptical alignment. We discuss here design choices involvedin design of an OA-ICOS instrument and how these choicesimpact instrument sensitivity, using as our example the design of the Harvard ICOS isotope instrument, which demonstrates...
J.M. St. Clair, T.F. Hanisco, E.M. Weinstock, E.J. Moyer,D.S. Sayres, F.N. Keutsch, J.H. Kroll, J.N. Demusz,N.T. Allen, J.B. Smith, J.R. Spackman, J.G. Anderson, A new photolysis laser-induced fluorescence instrument for the detection of H2O and HDO in the lower stratosphere. Sci. Instrum. 79, 064101 (2008). doi:10.1063/1.2940221.
We present a new instrument, Hoxotope, for the in situ measurement of H2O and its heavy deuterium isotopologue (HDO) in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere aboard the NASA WB-57. Sensitive measurements of δD are accomplished through the vacuum UV photolysis of water followed by laser-induced fluorescence detection of the resultant OH and OD photofragments....
Leroy, S., J. G. Anderson, J. Dykema, and R. Goody (2008), Testing climate models with thermal infrared spectra, J. Clim., 21, 1863–1875.
An approach to test climate models with observations is presented. In this approach, it is possible to directly observe the longwave feedbacks of the climate system in time series of annual average outgoing longwave spectra. Tropospheric temperature, stratospheric temperature, water vapor, and carbon dioxide have clear and distinctive signatures in the infrared spectrum, and it is possible to...
Weinstock, E. M., et al. (2007), Quantifying the impact of the North American monsoon and deep midlatitude convection on the subtropical lowermost stratosphere using in situ measurements, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D18310, doi:10.1029/2007JD008554.
The chemical composition of the lowermost stratosphere exhibits both spatial and temporal variability depending upon the relative strength of (1) isentropic transport from the tropical tropopause layer (TTL), (2) diabatic descent from the midlatitude and northern midlatitude stratosphere followed by equatorward isentropic transport, and (3) diabatic ascent from the troposphere through convection...
Leroy, S. S., and J. G. Anderson (2007), Estimating Eliassen-Palm flux using COSMIC radio occultation, Geophys. Res. Lett.,34, L10810, doi:10.1029/2006GL028263.
We present a methodology for analyzing the Eliassen-Palm (E-P) flux in the troposphere and stratosphere using GPS radio occultation data from the COSMIC project. In this methodology, geopotential height and temperature are mapped on constant pressure surfaces using a Bayesian interpolation scheme with a spherical harmonic basis, and the components of the E-P flux are evaluated using geostrophic...
Pittman, J. V., et al. (2007), Transport in the subtropical lowermost stratosphere during the Cirrus Regional Study ofTropical Anvils and Cirrus Layers – Florida Area Cirrus Experiment, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D08304, doi:10.1029/2006JD007851.
We use in situ measurements of water vapor (H2O), ozone (O3), carbon dioxide(CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), nitric oxide (NO), and total reactive nitrogen (NOy)obtained during the CRYSTAL-FACE campaign in July 2002 to study summertimetransport in the subtropical lowermost stratosphere. We use an objective methodology todistinguish the latitudinal origin of the sampled air masses despite the...