Abstract
Cold-air drainage and pooling can have wide-ranging impacts, including affecting ecosystem processes and agricultural crops, and contributing to decreased air quality associated with temperature inversions. Future climate changes may alter both the frequency and intensity of cold-air drainage. This study estimates the response of nocturnal cold-air drainage to warming resulting from anthropogenic greenhouse gases, specifically CO2, considering radiative and thermodynamic effects but not changes in background air flow (dynamic effects). A simple index is proposed to represent the propensity for clear-sky nocturnal cold-air drainage as a function of air temperature and humidity near dusk. Decreases in this index with increasing atmospheric emissivity due to increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gase concentrations imply a weakening of cold-air drainage. The magnitude of the decrease in the index is positively related to the initial background temperature and humidity: Warm regions are more sensitive than cold regions, and humid regions are more sensitive than dry regions, implying that warm and/or humid regions are more at risk of decreases in cold-air drainage. Under atmospheric CO2 concentrations consistent with Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5, the magnitude of decrease in the index indicates that nocturnal cold-air drainage intensity may decline by at least 10% by 2100 CE (compared to 1979–1990) with larger decreases in warm and humid regimes. The index should be tested with intentionally designed field or lab experiments, and the relative effects on cold-air drainage of changes in radiative, sensible, and latent heat fluxes, and atmospheric circulation, should be compared.
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Data availability
The data generated for this study are available in the ScienceBase repository, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9O32PGV (Rupp et al. 2021).
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Acknowledgements
We thank Nick Pepin and three anonymous reviewers for their comments. D.R. is grateful to Nick Bond for some early inspiration. Data for Oregon were provided by the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest and Long Term Ecological Research program, administered cooperatively by the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, Oregon State University, and the Willamette National Forest. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
Funding
David Rupp was supported by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS; cooperative agreement G12AC20283). Sarah Shafer was supported by the USGS Climate Research and Development Program. Julia Jones and David Rupp were supported by the National Science Foundation (Andrews Forest LTER7 DEB-1440409). Chris Daly and David Rupp were supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Risk Management Agency (cooperative agreement 2019–2363).
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Conceptualization: David Rupp and Chad Higgins. Methodology: David Rupp. Writing—original draft preparation: David Rupp; writing—review and editing: David Rupp, Sarah Shafer, Chris Daly, Julia Jones, and C. Higgins; resources: Chris Daly.
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Rupp, D.E., Shafer, S.L., Daly, C. et al. Influence of anthropogenic greenhouse gases on the propensity for nocturnal cold-air drainage. Theor Appl Climatol 146, 231–241 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-021-03712-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-021-03712-y