North Atlantic climate far more predictable than models imply

Smith, Doug; Scaife, Adam A.; Eade, Rosie; Athanasiadis, Panos; Bellucci, Alessio; Bethke, Ingo; Bilbao, Roberto; Borchert, Leonard; Caron, Louis-Philippe; Counillon, François; Danabasoglu, Gökhan; Delworth, T. L.; Doblas‐Reyes, Francisco J.; Dunstone, Nick; Estella-Perez, Victor; Flavoni, Simona; Hermanson, Leon; Keenlyside, Noel; Kharin, Viatcheslav; Kimoto, Masahide; Merryfield, William J.; Mignot, Juliette; Mochizuki, Takashi; Modali, Kameswarrao; Monerie, Paul‐Arthur; Müller, Wolfgang A.; Nicolì, Dario; Ortega, Pablo; Pankatz, Klaus; Pohlmann, Holger; Robson, Jon; Ruggieri, Paolo; Sospedra‐Alfonso, Reinel; Swingedouw, Didier; Wang, Yiguo; Wild, S. B.; Yeager, Stephen; Yang, Xiaosong; Zhang, Liping

doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2525-0

Cited by 183 publications

(244 citation statements)

References 76 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

225

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…By not resolving a possible sustained increase in future Greenland blocking events and associated atmospheric circulation changes, CMIP6 (and previous CMIP5) ESM‐based projections could therefore underestimate Greenland ice sheet surface melt if the observed recent circulation anomalies persist over subsequent decades. Major uncertainties concerning the global understanding of the processes producing these blocking events currently preclude reliable simulation of their occurrence by climate models (Woollings et al ., 2018; Smith et al ., 2020). Therefore, future ESM developments should focus on representing such changes in atmospheric circulation in order to reduce the uncertainty in: (1) projections of Greenland ice sheet contribution to global sea level rise; and (2) possible downstream effects of Greenland blocking on the North Atlantic polar jet stream and accompanying extreme weather conditions over Northwest Europe (Hanna et al ., 2018b).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brief communication: CMIP6 does not suggest any atmospheric blocking increase in summer over Greenland by 2100

Delhasse

Hanna

Kittel

et al. 2021

Intl Journal of Climatology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Greenland blocking index (GBI), an indicator of the synoptic‐scale circulation over Greenland, has been anomalously positive during most summers since the late 1990s. Such changes in atmospheric circulation, favouring anticyclonic conditions, have led to an increase in Greenland summer temperatures, a decrease in cloud cover and larger surface melt. The GBI is therefore a key indicator of melting and surface mass balance variability over the Greenland ice sheet. However, the models of fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) do not represent the increase in GBI that is suggested by recent observations, and do not project any significant increase in GBI until 2100. In this study, the new generation of CMIP6 Earth‐system models is evaluated in order to analyse the evolution of the future GBI. All CMIP5 and CMIP6 projections reveal the same trend towards a decrease of the GBI until 2100 and no model reproduces the strong increase in the persistence of summer blocking events observed over the last few decades. Significant melting events related to a highly positive GBI, as observed in summer 2019, are still not considered by CMIP6 models and therefore the projected surface melt increase of the ice sheet could be underestimated if such summer circulation changes persist in the next decades.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brief communication: CMIP6 does not suggest any atmospheric blocking increase in summer over Greenland by 2100

Delhasse

Hanna

Kittel

et al. 2021

Intl Journal of Climatology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As winter is the most important season for groundwater recharge in Europe, the ability to accurately forecast winter streamflow would be extremely beneficial for water managers. Advances in predicting the NAO (Scaife et al, 2014;Smith et al, 2020) enable long-range forecasts of UK winter hydrology (Svensson et al, 2015) as well as improved seasonal meteorological forecasts for driving hydrological models (Stringer et al, 2020). Hence, it may be possible to leverage this predictability to improve ESP performance by sub-sampling ensemble members for Ireland using the winter NAO.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Conditioning Ensemble Streamflow Prediction with the North Atlantic Oscillation improves skill at longer lead times

Donegan¹,

Murphy²,

Harrigan³

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Skilful hydrological forecasts can benefit decision-making in water resources management and other water-related sectors that require long-term planning. In Ireland, no such service exists to deliver forecasts at the catchment scale. In order to understand the potential for hydrological forecasting in Ireland, we benchmark the skill of Ensemble Streamflow Prediction (ESP) for a diverse sample of 46 catchments using the GR4J hydrological model. Skill is evaluated within a 52-year hindcast study design over lead times of 1 day to 12 months for each of 12 initialisation months, January to December. Our results show that ESP is skilful against a probabilistic climatology benchmark in the majority of catchments up to several months ahead. However, the level of skill was strongly dependent on lead time, initialisation month, and individual catchment location and storage properties. Mean ESP skill was found to decay rapidly as a function of lead time, with continuous ranked probability skill scores of 0.8 (1-day), 0.32 (2-week), 0.18 (1-month), 0.05 (3-month), and 0.01 (12-month). Forecasts were generally more skilful when initialised in summer than other seasons. A strong correlation (ρ = 0.94) was observed between forecast skill and catchment storage capacity (baseflow index), with the most skilful regions, the Midlands and East, being those where slowly responding, high storage catchments are located. Results also highlight the potential utility of ESP for decision-making, as measured by its ability to forecast low and high flow events. In addition to our benchmarking experiment, we conditioned ESP on the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) using adjusted hindcasts from the Met Office's Global Seasonal Forecasting System version 5. We found gains in winter forecast skill of 7–18 % were possible over lead times of 1 to 3 months, and that NAO-conditioned ESP is particularly effective at forecasting dry winters, a critical season for water resources management. We conclude that ESP is skilful in a number of different contexts and thus should be operationalised in Ireland given its potential benefits for water managers and other stakeholders.

show abstract

“…However, climate models also show a spuriously low ratio of predictable signal strength to internal noise variability. This means that newfound decadal prediction skill can only be realized by averaging large ensembles of hundreds of simulations and it could affect the attribution and prediction of quantitative changes in extratropical climate using current models (Scaife & Smith, 2018; Smith et al, 2020).…”

Section: New Insightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ten new insights in climate science 2020 – a horizon scan

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Non-technical summary We summarize some of the past year's most important findings within climate change-related research. New research has improved our understanding of Earth's sensitivity to carbon dioxide, finds that permafrost thaw could release more carbon emissions than expected and that the uptake of carbon in tropical ecosystems is weakening. Adverse impacts on human society include increasing water shortages and impacts on mental health. Options for solutions emerge from rethinking economic models, rights-based litigation, strengthened governance systems and a new social contract. The disruption caused by COVID-19 could be seized as an opportunity for positive change, directing economic stimulus towards sustainable investments. Technical summary A synthesis is made of ten fields within climate science where there have been significant advances since mid-2019, through an expert elicitation process with broad disciplinary scope. Findings include: (1) a better understanding of equilibrium climate sensitivity; (2) abrupt thaw as an accelerator of carbon release from permafrost; (3) changes to global and regional land carbon sinks; (4) impacts of climate change on water crises, including equity perspectives; (5) adverse effects on mental health from climate change; (6) immediate effects on climate of the COVID-19 pandemic and requirements for recovery packages to deliver on the Paris Agreement; (7) suggested long-term changes to governance and a social contract to address climate change, learning from the current pandemic, (8) updated positive cost–benefit ratio and new perspectives on the potential for green growth in the short- and long-term perspective; (9) urban electrification as a strategy to move towards low-carbon energy systems and (10) rights-based litigation as an increasingly important method to address climate change, with recent clarifications on the legal standing and representation of future generations. Social media summary Stronger permafrost thaw, COVID-19 effects and growing mental health impacts among highlights of latest climate science.

show abstract

North Atlantic climate far more predictable than models imply

Cited by 183 publications

References 76 publications

Brief communication: CMIP6 does not suggest any atmospheric blocking increase in summer over Greenland by 2100

Brief communication: CMIP6 does not suggest any atmospheric blocking increase in summer over Greenland by 2100

Conditioning Ensemble Streamflow Prediction with the North Atlantic Oscillation improves skill at longer lead times

Ten new insights in climate science 2020 – a horizon scan

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About