Preliminary assessment on climatological conditions in Royal Belum-Temenggor Rainforest Complex, Malaysia using MERRA-2 reanalysis datasets

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Abstract

Royal Belum-Temenggor Rainforest Complex (RBTRC) is renowned as one of the world’s oldest tropical rainforests and biodiversity hotspots. Its extensive forest coverage serves as a crucial carbon sink that stock more than 185 Mg ha ^-1 carbon, thereby playing a crucial role in regulating Earth’s temperature. Despite its significance as a major carbon sink and biodiversity ecosystem, studies on RBTRC have been limited primarily to biological and ecological studies. Baseline climate studies for this region are non-existent to-date. Baseline climate assessment is crucial for assessments of future climate change impact in this region. This study fills this critical research gap by investigating the climatological trends of annual-averaged temperature, surface pressure, specific humidity, wind speed and rainfall in RBTRC from 1991 to 2020 using the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA-2) reanalysis dataset. All atmospheric variables exhibit a normal distribution, and increasing trends are observed for all variables except for windspeed. Pearson’s correlations indicate positive correlation between pressure and temperature (0.5), specific humidity and rainfall (0.45), and negative correlation in pressure and rainfall (-0.59), specific humidity and windspeed (-0.55), and temperature and windspeed (-0.42). This complements the fundamental physical laws, indicating the reliability of the MERRA-2 reanalysis datasets for further climatological evaluation.

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The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2)

Bin Zhao, Cynthia Randles, Anton Darmenov … (2017)

The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2) is the latest atmospheric reanalysis of the modern satellite era produced by NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO). MERRA-2 assimilates observation types not available to its predecessor, MERRA, and includes updates to the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) model and analysis scheme so as to provide a viable ongoing climate analysis beyond MERRA’s terminus. While addressing known limitations of MERRA, MERRA-2 is also intended to be a development milestone for a future integrated Earth system analysis (IESA) currently under development at GMAO. This paper provides an overview of the MERRA-2 system and various performance metrics. Among the advances in MERRA-2 relevant to IESA are the assimilation of aerosol observations, several improvements to the representation of the stratosphere including ozone, and improved representations of cryospheric processes. Other improvements in the quality of MERRA-2 compared with MERRA include the reduction of some spurious trends and jumps related to changes in the observing system, and reduced biases and imbalances in aspects of the water cycle. Remaining deficiencies are also identified. Production of MERRA-2 began in June 2014 in four processing streams, and converged to a single near-real time stream in mid 2015. MERRA-2 products are accessible online through the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data Information Services Center (GES DISC).