Nature series journals are universallyrecognized as top journals in the field of natural sciences. In 2018, upon thetenth anniversary of its initial issue, NatureGeoscience, one of Nature series,organized a range of celebrations. Professor Ma Jian from the College of MarineScience of SHOU has won at a contest organized by thejournal, and has been invited by the journal to publish a commentary. ProfessorMa has also published a contributing review article on Annual Reviews, which can be said to be a major series result inthe field of researches on the tropical dynamics of climate change.
Nature Geoscience is a top academic journal in the field of geoscience.Founded in January 2008, it has an impact factor of 13.941. The “GeostoryCompetition” is one of the most important activities organized in celebrationof its tenth anniversary, and it has invited young scientists from all over theworld to introduce a scientific research paper that has most profoundlyinfluenced their work (published within the past decade). Participants werefirst required to submit an essay of no more than 150 words and an“eye-catching” image. After that, the editorial team of the journal conductedindependent appraisal according to the originality of the essay and theartistry of the image. Winners were invited to publish a commentary of about500 words with illustration on the journal. This activity selected ten winnersacross the globe, and professor Ma was the only Chinese winner (including overseasChinese).
Rainfall andClimate Feedbacks, a commentary contributed by professor Ma as invited by Nature Geoscience, was formallypublished on April 30 (see the English version attached). It reviewed a paperpublished by the journal in 2010 about the rise of tropical criticalprecipitation in global warming, and elaborated its profound significance forprecipitation response in climate change. As pointed out by professor Ma,according to this theory, if sea surface warming is spatially uniform, thedistribution of precipitation regions won’t change. In this case, wetterregions will have more precipitation, and vice versa, as the increased watervapor content in the atmosphere will intensify the transport of water vaporfrom arid regions to humid regions. However, according to the numericalsimulation work done by professor Ma, the weakening of general atmosphericcirculation offsets the effect of increased water vapor content, and causes theprecipitation change mechanism of “wet-get-wetter” to be suppressed by anothermechanism, i.e. “warmer-get-wetter”. According to the latter mechanism, thechange of sea surface temperature is the primary factor controlling futureprecipitation. That is, in regions where the degree of sea surface warming ishigher than that of average warming in tropical regions, precipitation willincrease. In regions where relative warming is weak, precipitation willdecrease. This is also because tropical critical precipitation rises up withthe average warming of sea surface. the interactions between precipitation andsea warming are extremely complicated, and climate models cannot offer veryprecise descriptions, so there are significant differences among differentmodels.
Professor Ma has long been engaging inscientific research and teaching about the changes of sea temperature, generalatmospheric circulation and precipitation in climate change and their feedbackto climate. Relying on years of hard work, he has achieved many prominentresearch results, some of which have drawn extensive international attention.For instance, the editorial board of AnnualReview of Earth and Planetary Science has invited him to summarize theresearch work in the past two decades on the general atmospheric circulationresponses in tropical regions caused by global warming and their influence onwater circulation changes, and to contribute an urgently-needed review articleto point out the direction of future researches. Annual Reviews is an international top multi-disciplinary reviewjournal with a large audience. It publishes one issue each year, and each issuecovers more than 40 disciplines (one volume for each discipline). Thisgeoscience journal has an impact factor of 9.78.
The contributing review article about thechanges of general atmospheric circulation, completely joined by professor Maand his colleagues in China, the UK, the US and South Korea, now has an onlinepre-release version, and is planned to be formally published on May 30. Thisarticle summarizes the influential works in the field of climate change inrecent years from two perspectives (i.e., theoretical estimation andobservation & simulation-based diagnosis), classifies the changes ofgeneral atmospheric circulation according to the spatial scale to describelarge-scale and regional climate changes, and explains their connections withsea surface temperature, wind, precipitation and energy transport. According toprofessor Ma, existing theories can be used to forecast the expansion oftropical regions to the two poles due to climate change, the weakening ofgeneral atmospheric circulation because of intensified stratification, and the“wet-get-wetter” mechanism of precipitation change mentioned above; in regionalclimate change, there is a mutual offset effect between general atmosphericcirculation and the “wet-get-wetter” mechanism, which results in theprecipitation response of “warmer-get-wetter” and the complicated changes onthe land as a result of the accumulation of various effects. Professor Ma hasstressed that future researches on climate change should pay close attention totopics about the combination of sea temperature and energy, and start with thedeviations in current climate simulation to explore the problem of uncertaintyin climate forecast, the changes of typhoon environment fields and the checksand balance among multiple physical process in land precipitation.
It is quite difficult to popularize thescientific topic of climate change, as it not only faces considerabledisciplinary complexities, but also very easily gives rise to controversies,such as the degree of climate warming and the interactions between atmosphereand ocean changes. Major results in series published by the team led byprofessor Ma plays a positive role in promoting the progress of researches onclimate & ocean, dynamics and changes and strengthening their socialinfluence: Their assortment of disciplinary development veins can helpresearchers clarify their research orientation and conduct follow-upresearches; for young people who have just entered this field. They have aprominent professional guiding significance; they also create conditions forexpanding research influence both inside and outside the field. Based on theabove results, professor Ma will continue to investigate climate feedbacks,such as the adjustment of the degree of global warming by water vapor and cloudchanges. Researches in this aspect have a huge prospect, and researches onsea-atmosphere interactions can shift our attention to the widely concernedissue: How warm will be earth be in the future?
Link of the “Geostory Competition” incelebration of the tenth anniversary of NatureGeoscience:
https://www.nature.com/ngeo/about/geostory?error=cookies_not_supported&code=31f7ced5-5409-45c1-b7d7-cbec93491cfd
Link of professor Ma’s commentary Rainfalland Climate Feedback (impact factor: 13.941):
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0135-3.epdf?author_access_token=XdoM1y8TzY_uklNdzTZIxdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0O0j4sp20UDp6l45e5H3ApVb6amZV93XZw1-9aykvLPoEA-xUPbriWCt5CPf861rrdiK3YWI2SXcRZGHX7BLVhUESWnOnGu9oby_HNI2g6-aw%3D%3D
Link of the review article about thechanges of general atmospheric circulation (impact factor: 9.78):
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-earth-082517-010102