Midlatitude atmospheric circulation responses under 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C warming and implications for regional impacts

Li, Camille; Michel, Clio; Graff, Lise Seland; Bethke, Ingo; Zappa, Giuseppe; Bracegirdle, Thomas J.; Fischer, Erich M.; Harvey, Ben; Iversen, Trond; King, M.; Krishnan, Hariharan; Lierhammer, Ludwig; Mitchell, Dann; Scinocca, John; Shiogama, Hideo; Stone, Dáithí A.; Wettstein, J. J.

doi:10.5194/esd-2017-107

Cited by 7 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…In a warmer climate, this atmospheric circulation feature is expected to significantly weaken both during extremely wet winters and on average (Figure 3c; compare with Figure 3a), which is in line with a documented weakening and reduction of storm intensity and frequency (Bevacqua, Zappa, et al., 2020; Harvey et al., 2020; Pinto et al., 2007; Zappa, Hawcroft, et al., 2015). As a result, precipitation extreme magnitudes and extents would decrease (Figure 3b; see also the reduced stippling around Marrakesh compared to Figure 3a), despite a higher atmospheric moisture content (Li et al., 2018; Pfahl et al., 2017).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Larger Spatial Footprint of Wintertime Total Precipitation Extremes in a Warmer Climate

Bevacqua

Shepherd

Watson

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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Extremely wet winters resulting from one or multiple precipitation events can contribute to flooding leading to severe societal, natural, and economic impacts. When such extremely wet conditions occur simultaneously at multiple locations within the same region, their impacts may be enhanced and lead to extreme cumulative losses (Leonard et al., 2014). In fact, widespread extreme events can affect the ability of governments and international (re-)insurance companies to respond to the emergency, given that resources and funds need to be provided at multiple locations and industrial sectors simultaneously (Enríquez et al., 2020;Kemter et al., 2020; Zscheischler et al., 2020). Recent extreme events showed that, as a result of persistent atmospheric conditions, extremely wet winters and associated flooding can affect multiple countries simultaneously and put high pressure on railway/road networks and transnational risk-reduction mechanisms (

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Larger Spatial Footprint of Wintertime Total Precipitation Extremes in a Warmer Climate

Bevacqua

Shepherd

Watson

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…The large precipitation reduction in the high-impact storyline can be confidently attributed to the change in the atmospheric circulation [50,59,60]. Associated with the anticyclonic anomaly, climate models project increased atmospheric subsidence and low-level divergence.…”

Section: Winter Mediterranean Circulation Changementioning

confidence: 96%

Regional Climate Impacts of Future Changes in the Mid–Latitude Atmospheric Circulation: a Storyline View

Zappa

2019

Curr Clim Change Rep

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Purpose of Review Atmospheric circulation exerts a strong control on regional climate and extremes. However, projections of future circulation change remain uncertain, thus affecting the assessment of regional climate change. The purpose of this review is to describe some key cases where regional precipitation and windiness strongly depend on the mid-latitude atmospheric circulation response to warming, and summarise this into alternative plausible storylines of regional climate change. Recent Findings Recent research has enabled to better quantify the importance of dynamical aspects of climate change in shaping regional climate. The cold season precipitation response in Mediterranean-like regions is identified as one of the most susceptible impact-relevant aspects of regional climate driven by mid-latitude circulation changes. A circulation-forced drying might already be emerging in the actual Mediterranean, Chile and southwestern Australia. Increasing evidence indicates that distinct regional changes in atmospheric circulation and European windiness might unfold depending on the interplay of different climate drivers, such as surface warming patterns, sea ice loss and stratospheric changes. Summary The multi-model mean circulation response to warming tends to show washed-out signals due to the lack of robustness in the model projections, with implications for regional changes. To better communicate the information contained within these projections, it is useful to discuss regional climate change conditionally on alternative plausible storylines of atmospheric circulation change. As progress continues in understanding the factors driving the response of circulation to global warming, developing such storylines will provide end-to-end and physically self-consistent descriptions of plausible future unfoldings of regional climate change.

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“…For the future decade, the CMIP5 ensemble mean SST and sea ice responses to global warming were added to the observed fields. More details about the simulations, models, and the forcings (atmospheric greenhouse gases, aerosols, ozone, and land) can be found in Mitchell et al (2017) and Li et al (2018). In the following, we use the daily outputs of geopotential at 500 hPa and zonal and meridional wind at 850 and 250 hPa from the five models: CAM4-2degree, CanAM4, ECHAM6.3-LR, MIROC5, and NorESM1-HAPPI.…”

Section: The Happi Large Ensemblementioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamical drivers of Greenland blocking in climate models

Michel

Madonna

Spensberger

et al. 2021

Weather Clim. Dynam.

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Abstract. Blocking over Greenland is known to lead to strong surface impacts, such as ice sheet melting, and a change in its future frequency can have important consequences. However, as previous studies demonstrated, climate models underestimate the blocking frequency for the historical period. Even though some improvements have recently been made, the reasons for the model biases are still unclear. This study investigates whether models with realistic Greenland blocking frequency in winter have a correct representation of its dynamical drivers, most importantly, cyclonic wave breaking (CWB). Because blocking is a rare event and its representation is model-dependent, we use a multi-model large ensemble. We focus on two models that show typical Greenland blocking features, namely a ridge over Greenland and an equatorward-shifted jet over the North Atlantic. ECHAM6.3-LR has the best representation of CWB of the models investigated but only the second best representation of Greenland blocking frequency, which is underestimated by a factor of 2. While MIROC5 has the most realistic Greenland blocking frequency, it also has the largest (negative) CWB frequency bias, suggesting that another mechanism leads to blocking in this model. Composites over Greenland blocking days show that the present and future experiments of each model are very similar to each other in both amplitude and pattern and that there is no significant change in Greenland blocking frequency in the future. However, these projected changes in blocking frequency are highly uncertain as long as the mechanisms leading to blocking formation and maintenance in models remain poorly understood.

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Midlatitude atmospheric circulation responses under 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C warming and implications for regional impacts

Cited by 7 publications

References 32 publications

Larger Spatial Footprint of Wintertime Total Precipitation Extremes in a Warmer Climate

Larger Spatial Footprint of Wintertime Total Precipitation Extremes in a Warmer Climate

Regional Climate Impacts of Future Changes in the Mid–Latitude Atmospheric Circulation: a Storyline View

Dynamical drivers of Greenland blocking in climate models

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