Efficacy of Climate Forcings in PDRMIP Models.

Quantifying the efficacy of different climate forcings is important for understanding the real-world climate sensitivity. This study presents a systematic multimodel analysis of different climate driver efficacies using simulations from the Precipitation Driver and Response Model Intercomparison Project (PDRMIP). Efficacies calculated from instantaneous radiative forcing deviate considerably from unity across forcing agents and models. Effective radiative forcing (ERF) is a better predictor of global mean near-surface air temperature (GSAT) change. Efficacies are closest to one when ERF is computed using fixed sea surface temperature experiments and adjusted for land surface temperature changes using radiative kernels. Multimodel mean efficacies based on ERF are close to one for global perturbations of methane, sulfate, black carbon, and insolation, but there is notable intermodel spread. We do not find robust evidence that the geographic location of sulfate aerosol affects its efficacy. GSAT is found to respond more slowly to aerosol forcing than CO2 in the early stages of simulations. Despite these differences, we find that there is no evidence for an efficacy effect on historical GSAT trend estimates based on simulations with an impulse response model, nor on the resulting estimates of climate sensitivity derived from the historical period. However, the considerable intermodel spread in the computed efficacies means that we cannot rule out an efficacy-induced bias of ±0.4 K in equilibrium climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling when estimated using the historical GSAT trend.

Sensible heat has significantly affected the global hydrological cycle over the historical period.

Globally, latent heating associated with a change in precipitation is balanced by changes to atmospheric radiative cooling and sensible heat fluxes. Both components can be altered by climate forcing mechanisms and through climate feedbacks, but the impacts of climate forcing and feedbacks on sensible heat fluxes have received much less attention. Here we show, using a range of climate modelling results, that changes in sensible heat are the dominant contributor to the present global-mean precipitation change since preindustrial time, because the radiative impact of forcings and feedbacks approximately compensate. The model results show a dissimilar influence on sensible heat and precipitation from various drivers of climate change. Due to its strong atmospheric absorption, black carbon is found to influence the sensible heat very differently compared to other aerosols and greenhouse gases. Our results indicate that this is likely caused by differences in the impact on the lower tropospheric stability.

A PDRMIP multi-model study on the impacts of regional aerosol forcings on global and regional precipitation.

Atmospheric aerosols such as sulfate and black carbon (BC) generate inhomogeneous radiative forcing and can affect precipitation in distinct ways compared to greenhouse gases (GHGs). Their regional effects on the atmospheric energy budget and circulation can be important for understanding and predicting global and regional precipitation changes, which act on top of the background GHG-induced hydrological changes. Under the framework of the Precipitation Driver Response Model Inter-comparison Project (PDRMIP), multiple models were used for the first time to simulate the influence of regional (Asian and European) sulfate and BC forcing on global and regional precipitation. The results show that, as in the case of global aerosol forcing, the global fast precipitation response to regional aerosol forcing scales with global atmospheric absorption, and the slow precipitation response scales with global surface temperature response. Asian sulphate aerosols appear to be a stronger driver of global temperature and precipitation change compared to European aerosols, but when the responses are normalised by unit radiative forcing or by aerosol burden change, the picture reverses, with European aerosols being more efficient in driving global change. The global apparent hydrological sensitivities of these regional forcing experiments are again consistent with those for corresponding global aerosol forcings found in the literature. However, the regional responses and regional apparent hydrological sensitivities do not align with the corresponding global values. Through a holistic approach involving analysis of the energy budget combined with exploring changes in atmospheric dynamics, we provide a framework for explaining the global and regional precipitation responses to regional aerosol forcing.

Carbon dioxide physiological forcing dominates projected Eastern Amazonian drying.

Future projections of east Amazonian precipitation indicate drying, but they are uncertain and poorly understood. In this study we analyse the Amazonian precipitation response to individual atmospheric forcings using a number of global climate models. Black carbon is found to drive reduced precipitation over the Amazon due to temperature-driven circulation changes, but the magnitude is uncertain. CO2 drives reductions in precipitation concentrated in the east, mainly due to a robustly negative, but highly variable in magnitude, fast response. We find that the physiological effect of CO2 on plant stomata is the dominant driver of the fast response due to reduced latent heating, and also contributes to the large model spread. Using a simple model we show that CO2 physiological effects dominate future multi-model mean precipitation projections over the Amazon. However, in individual models temperature-driven changes can be large, but due to little agreement, they largely cancel out in the model-mean.

Understanding Rapid Adjustments to Diverse Forcing Agents.

Rapid adjustments are responses to forcing agents that cause a perturbation to the top of atmosphere energy budget but are uncoupled to changes in surface warming. Different mechanisms are responsible for these adjustments for a variety of climate drivers. These remain to be quantified in detail. It is shown that rapid adjustments reduce the effective radiative forcing (ERF) of black carbon by half of the instantaneous forcing, but for CO2 forcing, rapid adjustments increase ERF. Competing tropospheric adjustments for CO2 forcing are individually significant but sum to zero, such that the ERF equals the stratospherically adjusted radiative forcing, but this is not true for other forcing agents. Additional experiments of increase in the solar constant and increase in CH4 are used to show that a key factor of the rapid adjustment for an individual climate driver is changes in temperature in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere.

Quantifying the Importance of Rapid Adjustments for Global Precipitation Changes.

Different climate drivers influence precipitation in different ways. Here we use radiative kernels to understand the influence of rapid adjustment processes on precipitation in climate models. Rapid adjustments are generally triggered by the initial heating or cooling of the atmosphere from an external climate driver. For precipitation changes, rapid adjustments due to changes in temperature, water vapor, and clouds are most important. In this study we have investigated five climate drivers (CO2, CH4, solar irradiance, black carbon, and sulfate aerosols). The fast precipitation responses to a doubling of CO2 and a 10-fold increase in black carbon are found to be similar, despite very different instantaneous changes in the radiative cooling, individual rapid adjustments, and sensible heating. The model diversity in rapid adjustments is smaller for the experiment involving an increase in the solar irradiance compared to the other climate driver perturbations, and this is also seen in the precipitation changes.

PDRMIP: A Precipitation Driver and Response Model Intercomparison Project, Protocol and preliminary results.

As the global temperature increases with changing climate, precipitation rates and patterns are affected through a wide range of physical mechanisms. The globally averaged intensity of extreme precipitation also changes more rapidly than the globally averaged precipitation rate. While some aspects of the regional variation in precipitation predicted by climate models appear robust, there is still a large degree of inter-model differences unaccounted for. Individual drivers of climate change initially alter the energy budget of the atmosphere leading to distinct rapid adjustments involving changes in precipitation. Differences in how these rapid adjustment processes manifest themselves within models are likely to explain a large fraction of the present model spread and needs better quantifications to improve precipitation predictions. Here, we introduce the Precipitation Driver and Response Model Intercomparison Project (PDRMIP), where a set of idealized experiments designed to understand the role of different climate forcing mechanisms were performed by a large set of climate models. PDRMIP focuses on understanding how precipitation changes relating to rapid adjustments and slower responses to climate forcings are represented across models. Initial results show that rapid adjustments account for large regional differences in hydrological sensitivity across multiple drivers. The PDRMIP results are expected to dramatically improve our understanding of the causes of the present diversity in future climate projections.

Non-invasive assessment of hepatic iron stores by MRI.

BACKGROUND: MRI has been proposed for non-invasive detection and quantification of liver iron content, but has not been validated as a reproducible and sensitive method, especially in patients with mild iron overload. We aimed to assess the accuracy of a simple, rapid, and easy to implement MRI procedure to detect and quantify hepatic iron stores. METHODS: Of 191 patients recruited, 17 were excluded and 174 studied, 139 in a study group and 35 in a validation group. All patients underwent both percutaneous liver biopsy with biochemical assessment of hepatic iron concentration (B-HIC) and MRI of the liver with various gradient-recalled-echo (GRE) sequences obtained with a 1.5 T magnet. Correlation between liver to muscle (L/M) signal intensity ratio and liver iron concentration was calculated. An algorithm to calculate magnetic resonance hepatic iron concentration (MR-HIC) was developed with data from the study group and then applied to the validation group. FINDINGS: A highly T2-weighted GRE sequence was most sensitive, with 89% sensitivity and 80% specificity in the validation group, with an L/M ratio below 0.88. This threshold allowed us to detect all clinically relevant liver iron overload greater than 60 micromol/g (normal value <36 micromol/g). With other sequences, an L/M ratio less than 1 was highly specific (>87%) for raised hepatic iron concentration. With respect to B-HIC range analysed (3-375 micromol/g), mean difference and 95% CI between B-HIC and MR-HIC were quite similar for study and validation groups (0.8 micromol/g [-6.3 to 7.9] and -2.1 micromol/g [-12.9 to 8.9], respectively). INTERPRETATION: MRI is a rapid, non-invasive, and cost effective technique that could limit use of liver biopsy to assess liver iron content. Our MR-HIC algorithm is designed to be used on various magnetic resonance machines.

MRI texture analysis on texture test objects, normal brain and intracranial tumors.

Texture analysis was performed in three different MRI units on T1 and T2-weighted MR images from 10 healthy volunteers and 63 patients with histologically confirmed intracranial tumors. The goal of this study was a multicenter evaluation of the usefulness of this quantitative approach for the characterization of healthy and pathologic human brain tissues (white matter, gray matter, cerebrospinal fluid, tumors and edema). Each selected brain region of interest was characterized with both its mean gray level values and several texture parameters. Multivariate statistical analyses were then applied in order to discriminate each brain tissue type represented by its own set of texture parameters. Texture analysis was previously performed on test objects to evaluate the method dependence on acquisition parameters and consequently the interest of a multicenter evaluation. Even obtained on different sites with their own acquisition routine protocol, MR brain images contain textural features that can reveal discriminant factors for tissue classification and image segmentation. It can also offer additional information in case of undetermined diagnosis or to develop a more accurate tumor grading.

Safe radiation exposure of medical personnel by using simple methods of radioprotection while administering 131I-lipiodol therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma.

The intra-arterial administration of 131I-lipiodol is a therapeutic approach increasingly used for the treatment of inoperable hepatocellular carcinomas. This technique has even become the reference treatment for hepatocellular carcinomas with portal thrombosis and is the only effective treatment to reduce the risk of recurrence among patients who could benefit from surgical operation. Currently, few data have been published concerning the levels of exposure for personnel carrying out this type of treatment. We undertook a dosimetric study targeted mainly on the exposure of the person performing the injection of 131I-lipiodol to show that this treatment can be carried out with an exposure at the extremities distinctly lower than the regulatory annual threshold by using simple means of radioprotection. The point of puncture was carried out at the level of left femoral artery, the preparation and injection of the therapeutic dose was carried out extemporaneously by the nuclear medicine specialist using a 10 ml syringe (for an injected volume of 4 ml) fitted with an adapted syringe protector. The injection was carried out as rapidly as possible under scopic control while avoiding reflux, with compression carried out by the radiologist. This study comprises 52 intra-arterial injections of 131I-lipiodol (2016+/-92 MBq). For the nuclear medicine specialists, 52 measurements were carried out at the level of the thorax and 41 on the fingers. For the radiologists, 22 measurements were carried out at the level of the thorax and six on their index fingers; nine measurements were carried out at the level of the thorax for the technologist and four at the level of the thorax for the stretcher bearer. For the nuclear medicine specialists, the average dose received at the level of the fingers varies between 140 and 443 microSv (according to the fingers) and the average dose at the thorax is 17 microSv. For the radiologists, the average dose received is 215 microSv at the level of the fingers and 15 microSv at the thorax. These results show that the administration of high therapeutic activities of 131I-lipiodol can be carried out for the exposed personnel with a dose at the level of the fingers much lower than the European regulatory limit of 500 mSv.