Browsing by Author "Johnson, JS"

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    New 10Be exposure ages improve Holocene ice sheet thinning history near the grounding line of Pope Glacier, Antarctica
    (European Geosciences Union, 2022-12-06) Adams, JR; Johnson, JS; Roberts, SJ; Mason, PJ; Nichols, KA; Venturelli, RY; Wilcken, KM; Balco, G; Goehring, B; Hall, B; Woodward, J; Rood, DH
    Evidence for the timing and pace of past grounding line retreat of the Thwaites Glacier system in the Amundsen Sea embayment (ASE) of Antarctica provides constraints for models that are used to predict the future trajectory of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Existing cosmogenic nuclide surface exposure ages suggest that Pope Glacier, a former tributary of Thwaites Glacier, experienced rapid thinning in the early to mid-Holocene. There are relatively few exposure ages from the lower ice-free sections of Mt. Murphy (<300 m a.s.l.; metres above sea level) that are uncomplicated by either nuclide inheritance or scatter due to localised topographic complexities; this makes the trajectory for the latter stages of deglaciation uncertain. This paper presents 12 new 10Be exposure ages from erratic cobbles collected from the western flank of Mt. Murphy, within 160 m of the modern ice surface and 1 km from the present grounding line. The ages comprise two tightly clustered populations with mean deglaciation ages of 7.1 ± 0.1 and 6.4 ± 0.1 ka (1 SE). Linear regression analysis applied to the age–elevation array of all available exposure ages from Mt. Murphy indicates that the median rate of thinning of Pope Glacier was 0.27 m yr−1 between 8.1–6.3 ka, occurring 1.5 times faster than previously thought. Furthermore, this analysis better constrains the uncertainty (95 % confidence interval) in the timing of deglaciation at the base of the Mt. Murphy vertical profile (∼ 80 m above the modern ice surface), shifting it to earlier in the Holocene (from 5.2 ± 0.7 to 6.3 ± 0.4 ka). Taken together, the results presented here suggest that early- to mid-Holocene thinning of Pope Glacier occurred over a shorter interval than previously assumed and permit a longer duration over which subsequent late Holocene re-thickening could have occurred. © Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
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    Robust observational constraint of uncertain aerosol processes and emissions in a climate model and the effect on aerosol radiative forcing
    (Copernicus Publications, 2020-08-13) Johnson, JS; Regayre, LA; Yoshioka, M; Pringle, KJ; Turnock, ST; Browse, J; Sexton, DMH; Rostron, JW; Schutgens, NAJ; Partridge, DG; Liu, DT; Allan, JD; Coe, H; Ding, AJ; Cohen, DD; Antancio, AJ; Kakkari, V; Asmi, E; Carslaw, KS
    The effect of observational constraint on the ranges of uncertain physical and chemical process parameters was explored in a global aerosol–climate model. The study uses 1 million variants of the Hadley Centre General Environment Model version 3 (HadGEM3) that sample 26 sources of uncertainty, together with over 9000 monthly aggregated grid-box measurements of aerosol optical depth, PM2.5, particle number concentrations, sulfate and organic mass concentrations. Despite many compensating effects in the model, the procedure constrains the probability distributions of parameters related to secondary organic aerosol, anthropogenic SO2 emissions, residential emissions, sea spray emissions, dry deposition rates of SO2 and aerosols, new particle formation, cloud droplet pH and the diameter of primary combustion particles. Observational constraint rules out nearly 98 % of the model variants. On constraint, the ±1σ (standard deviation) range of global annual mean direct radiative forcing (RFari) is reduced by 33 % to −0.14 to −0.26 W m−2, and the 95 % credible interval (CI) is reduced by 34 % to −0.1 to −0.32 W m−2. For the global annual mean aerosol–cloud radiative forcing, RFaci, the ±1σ range is reduced by 7 % to −1.66 to −2.48 W m−2, and the 95 % CI by 6 % to −1.28 to −2.88 W m−2. The tightness of the constraint is limited by parameter cancellation effects (model equifinality) as well as the large and poorly defined “representativeness error” associated with comparing point measurements with a global model. The constraint could also be narrowed if model structural errors that prevent simultaneous agreement with different measurement types in multiple locations and seasons could be improved. For example, constraints using either sulfate or PM2.5 measurements individually result in RFari±1σ ranges that only just overlap, which shows that emergent constraints based on one measurement type may be overconfident. © The Authors CC-BY Licence 4.0