Climate change: past, present and future and overview of the numerical pollen dispersion model COSMO-ART

• Grant number: 10/08584-3
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Visiting Researcher Grant - International
• Start date: August 10, 2010
• End date: August 19, 2010
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Geosciences - Meteorology
• Principal Investigator: Fábio Luiz Teixeira Gonçalves
• Grantee: Fábio Luiz Teixeira Gonçalves
• Visiting researcher: Andreas Pauling
• Visiting researcher institution: Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss, Switzerland
• Host Institution: Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas (IAG). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Dr. Pauling is a young researcher and active, as seen on his curriculum vitae, attached, working in two different fields of study, both very relevant. His curriculum presents only the most important publications in refereed journals. The first area of its operations, where he defended his doctoral thesis, is the historical climatology. This is a multidisciplinary field involving biology, history, hydrology and climatology. To diagnose the climate changes is mandatory to have a good understanding of natural climate variability. This can be achieved through analysis of past climate. However, the instrumental record only goes back 150 years, at best. Climate reconstructions can extend the instrumental record further back in time, producing more consistent statistics to determine the natural climate variability. Thus, climate change observed in the present moment can be seen in a historical context. Dr. Pauling surveyed the fields of precipitation and temperature in Europe over the past 500 years, as demonstrated by some of his excellent work in refereed journals. This survey had the combination of various fields above activities, in particular, dendroclimatology, study of tree rings. Their results and the methodology employed are quite relevant with respect to climate change. There are few studies in Brazil with this focus and, above all, this methodology. The schedule of seminars intended to overview these topics. Our Department of Atmospheric Sciences lacks this kind of methodology and approach, which is fundamental for this visit. The second field is based on pollen dispersion, where currently Dr. Pauling has improved within the MeteoSwiss, with a lab and researchers at the forefront. First, pollen is also a weather tracer within the scope of the study of Palinology, whose core is the climate reconstruction, as described above. Additionally, Dr. Pauling is simulating the dispersal of biological material, in order to study its impact on allergy symptoms known as hay-fever, very common throughout Europe during the spring. The study of pollen dispersal is based on the mesoscale model COSMO-ART (Consortium for Small-scale modeling - Aerosols and Reactive Trace gases). COSMOS is a non-hydrostatic mesoscale model used in operational weather forecasting in a series of meteorological services in Europe, including Switzerland and Germany. The ART module describes the chemical reactions and the dynamics of aerosols and the emission of pollen and its dispersion processes. This model has numerous applications in the dispersion of particulate matter (where the pollen and other biological materials, as spores and bacteria) with a large range of published literature. This modeling is within the scope of his seminar presentations at our Department, since we have studies of dispersion of gases and particulate matter, but with other meteorological models used in LAPAt (Laboratory of Atmospheric Processes), coordinated by Prof. Dr. Maria de Fatima Andrade, by Prof. Dr. Fornaro Adalgiza and me. Also, the main results will be presented in the seminars. This methodology also helps in calculating the concentration of pollen in the top of the planetary boundary layer which facilitates its intrusion into the clouds. This factor is important to realize that studies on ice cores within clouds, as the pollen particles are ice nuclei around 5oC, warmer temperature compared with other non-biological materials. And as evidenced by my curriculum, and teach the discipline of Biometeorology at undergraduate and postgraduate students (two students in this area at present moment), and much of the above is part of the contents of this discipline, I believe the visit of Dr. Pauling would be of great importance to my work as well as for the entire Department of Atmospheric Sciences. (AU)