Author: saroshalam

New Article: Explaining observed daily variations and decadal trends in the diurnal air temperature range

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How much warmer is the day compared to the night? Or, in other words, how large is the diurnal air temperature range (DTR)? This might seem like a simple question, but the DTR actually varies in surprisingly complex ways across regions and periods. What shapes these variations? What happens to DTR on cloudy days and under clear skies? How does it respond to how wet or dry the land is? And what happens to DTR as the planet warms? We answer these questions in our new study led by Sarosh, published in Geophysical Research Letters. Our goal was to understand the physics behind the DTR using an approach that links the short and long-term variations in DTR to things we can observe and measure, like clouds, sunlight, and surface dryness.

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#EGU25: We will be in Vienna to share our latest insights on energetic constraints shaping maximum temperatures, temperature variations with altitude, and potential evaporation estimates.

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April is here, and geoscientists are once again heading to Vienna. Why? Because Europe’s largest Geoscience Union, EGU, is all set to convene for its General Assembly, EGU25, which take place from 27 April – 2 May 2025. We are thrilled to be there again and share our science. Our group will be contributing to three oral presentations by our PhD student Saurabh and postdocs Tejasvi and Sarosh.

Continue reading “#EGU25: We will be in Vienna to share our latest insights on energetic constraints shaping maximum temperatures, temperature variations with altitude, and potential evaporation estimates.” →

New Paper: Clouds obscure the link between extreme rainfall and rising temperatures

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Rainfall events are expected to intensify everywhere because warmer air can hold more moisture. However, testing this relationship with observations across warmer regions and periods sometimes seem to contradict this expectation, showing negative or inconsistent trends. Our new study published in Nature Communications and led by Sarosh shows that it is mainly the cooling effect of clouds associated with rainfall that causes these discrepancies. By accounting for this effect, we resolve the apparent mismatch between observations and theory, providing evidence of increases in extreme rainfall with warmer temperatures. More information in this blogpost and in the paper.

Continue reading “New Paper: Clouds obscure the link between extreme rainfall and rising temperatures” →

New Paper: What make heatwaves different and how do their impacts on ecosystems vary?

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With global warming, heatwaves are becoming more frequent, intense, and prolonged, impacting ecosystems, food production, infrastructure, and human health. In our recent study published in Communications Earth & Environment led by Yinglin Tian, we show that heatwaves do not all operate in the same way. They arise from diverse processes that are reflected in characteristic differences in surface energy balance partitioning, each with distinct impacts on ecosystems and different trends under global warming.

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Sarosh finishes his PhD on “Interactions between hydrological cycle and land-surface temperatures: insights from a thermodynamic systems perspective”

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On 22nd February 2024, I successfully defended my PhD thesis on “Interactions between hydrological cycle and land-surface temperatures: insights from a thermodynamic systems perspective”. With this, I have finished my joint PhD program at Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and Karlsruhe Institute of technology (KIT). This blog post briefly summarizes my PhD journey from how I chose this topic, the work I did in my PhD, and the implications of my work.

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#EGU24: We will be in Vienna to share our updates on thermodynamics, hydrologic sensitivities, biodiversity-climate interactions, temperature extremes and wind energy impacts.

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It’s April again, the month when Europe’s largest geoscience union, EGU, convenes for its General Assembly in Vienna, Austria. This year, EGU-24 is scheduled to take place from 14 – 19 April 2024, and we are thrilled to be there and share our science. Our group will be contributing to several presentations, including those by Tejasvi, Sarosh, Axel, Pinhsin and Yinglin.

Continue reading “#EGU24: We will be in Vienna to share our updates on thermodynamics, hydrologic sensitivities, biodiversity-climate interactions, temperature extremes and wind energy impacts.” →

Invited talk at IWCSDG-2024: Applying a thermodynamic systems approach to hydrologic cycling and global change

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On 23rd March 2024, Sarosh gave an invited talk at the International water conference on sustainable development goals (IWCSDG-2024) held at NIT Bhopal, India. His presentation focused on using thermodynamic limits as an additional constraint to model the hydrological cycle and estimate the hydrological fluxes.

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New paper: Explaining the climatological variations in downwelling longwave radiation across space and time

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Downwelling longwave radiation dominantly heats the Earth’s surface across the globe and shows systematic variations in space and time. In our new paper, we showed that these variations are predominantly shaped by changes in the heat accumulation within the lower atmosphere, while changes in cloud-cover and water-vapor remain a secondary contributor.

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New Paper: Revealing the power of motion in shaping land-surface temperatures

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Surface temperatures over land are affected by the vertical turbulent exchange of heat and moisture from the surface to the atmosphere. While these processes are inherently complex, we show in our new article that by accounting for thermodynamic limits, the observed temperature patterns follow relatively simple and predictable rules.

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#EGU23: It’s April again, and Vienna is calling.  We share our recent insights from following the energy through the Earth system. @akleidon @s_ghausi @yinglin_tian

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Just like in pre-Corona times, April is the month in which Europe’s largest geosciences union convenes for its General Assembly in Vienna, Austria.  We are excited to be there, present our latest research, and look forward to seeing and talking to you there!

Continue reading “#EGU23: It’s April again, and Vienna is calling.  We share our recent insights from following the energy through the Earth system. @akleidon @s_ghausi @yinglin_tian” →

#AGU22: We will be in Chicago next week to present our updates about thermodynamic and energetic controls on land-atmosphere exchange and Arctic sea ice loss events

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It is that time of the year again and the AGU Fall Meeting is all set to take place in the hybrid format. This year two members of our lab Sarosh Alam Ghausi and Yinglin Tian will be presenting their research in person at the conference.

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Can we infer rainfall sensitivity to global warming using observations of precipitation and temperature? Not quite, until you correct for the cooling effects of clouds.

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Rainfall events are expected to become heavier as the hydrologic cycle intensifies with global warming. To determine this strengthening, many studies use observed precipitation events and test how these change with observed temperatures. These so-called scaling rates differ from what is expected from theory, showing a decline above temperatures of around 23° – 25°C. This breakdown in scaling makes it difficult to interpret the precipitation response to global warming and its cause further remains unclear. It also raises the question of whether a high-temperature threshold limits the increase in the intensity of precipitation events with temperature. We resolve this in our latest paper by showing that the break in scaling primarily occurs due to radiative effect of clouds on surface temperatures that leads to a covariation between the two variables.

Continue reading “Can we infer rainfall sensitivity to global warming using observations of precipitation and temperature? Not quite, until you correct for the cooling effects of clouds.” →