The dynamics of cyclones in the twentyfirst century: the Eastern Mediterranean as an example

Hochman, Assaf; Alpert, Pinhas; Kunin, Pavel; Rostkier‐Edelstein, Dorita; Harpaz, Tzvi; Saaroni, Hadas; Messori, Gabriele

doi:10.1007/s00382-019-05017-3

Cited by 36 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 83 publications

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“…They can thus be computed for any state ζ on the underlying attractor – a state in our case being a latitude–longitude map of one or more atmospheric variables at a given time. d and θ −1 have recently been applied to a range of different climate variables over different geographical domains and were found to successfully reflect large‐scale features of atmospheric motions (Messori et al, ; Faranda et al ., ; ; ; ; Rodrigues et al ., ; Hochman et al ., ; ).…”

Section: Dynamical Systems Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamical systems theory sheds new light on compound climate extremes in Europe and Eastern North America

Luca

Messori

Pons

et al. 2020

Quart J Royal Meteoro Soc

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We propose a novel approach to the study of compound extremes, grounded in dynamical systems theory. Specifically, we present the co‐recurrence ratio (α), which elucidates the dependence structure between variables by quantifying their joint recurrences. This approach is applied to daily climate extremes, derived from the ERA‐Interim reanalysis over the 1979–2018 period. The analysis focuses on concurrent (i.e., same‐day) wet (total precipitation) and windy (10 m wind gusts) extremes in Europe and concurrent cold (2 m temperature) extremes in Eastern North America and wet extremes in Europe. Results for wet and windy extremes in Europe, which we use as a test‐bed for our methodology, show that α peaks during boreal winter. High α values correspond to wet and windy extremes in northwestern Europe, and to large‐scale conditions resembling the positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). This confirms earlier findings which link the positive NAO to a heightened frequency of extratropical cyclones impacting northwestern Europe. For the Eastern North America–Europe case, α extremes once again reflect concurrent climate extremes – in this case cold extremes over North America and wet extremes over Europe. Our analysis provides detailed spatial information on regional hotspots for these compound extreme occurrences, and encapsulates information on their spatial footprint which is typically not included in a conventional co‐occurrence analysis. We conclude that α successfully characterises compound extremes by reflecting the evolution of the associated meteorological maps. This approach is entirely general, and may be applied to different types of compound extremes and geographical regions.

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Section: Dynamical Systems Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamical systems theory sheds new light on compound climate extremes in Europe and Eastern North America

Luca

Messori

Pons

et al. 2020

Quart J Royal Meteoro Soc

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“…The Mediterranean (MED) Basin is considered a climate change hotspot (Giorgi, 2006) and has seen winter drying as well as a pronounced increase in summer heatwaves over recent decades (e.g. Mariotti, 2010;Hoerling et al, 2012;Shohami et al, 2011;Nykjaer, 2009). Summer heatwave trends observed over the historical period are mainly driven by thermodynamic changes, such as increasing temperatures, that exacerbate soil drying and daily maximum temperatures.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Drying trends during winter are associated with atmospheric circulation changes (i.e. northward shift and intensification of the storm track), likely triggered by increased greenhouse gas and aerosol forcing (Hoerling et al, 2012). However, wintertime heavy precipitation, often in the form of snowfall, has not decreased as rapidly as one may expect as a consequence of global warming (Faranda, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Changes, such as a reduction in cold spell intensity, are also expected during winter. For example, Hochman et al (2020) showed that Cyprus Lows -synoptic low-pressure systems that develop over the Eastern MED and can drive cold spells and heavy precipitation over the Levant -are projected to decrease in frequency and rainbearing capacity in the future. Changes in atmospheric dynamics, such as an amplified "monsoon-desert mechanism" in summer (Rodwell and Hoskins, 1996;Cherchi et al, 2016;Kim et al, 2019;Wang et al, 2012) or a poleward shift of the tropical belt in winter (Hu and Fu, 2007;Seidel et al, 2008;Peleg et al, 2015;Totz et al, 2018), may play a significant role in enhancing the drying of the MED in future climates.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Compound warm–dry and cold–wet events over the Mediterranean

et al. 2020

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Abstract. The Mediterranean (MED) Basin is a climate change hotspot that has seen drying and a pronounced increase in heatwaves over the last century. At the same time, it is experiencing increased heavy precipitation during wintertime cold spells. Understanding and quantifying the risks from compound events over the MED is paramount for present and future disaster risk reduction measures. Here, we apply a novel method to study compound events based on dynamical systems theory and analyse compound temperature and precipitation events over the MED from 1979 to 2018. The dynamical systems analysis quantifies the strength of the coupling between different atmospheric variables over the MED. Further, we consider compound warm–dry anomalies in summer and cold–wet anomalies in winter. Our results show that these warm–dry and cold–wet compound days are associated with large values of the temperature–precipitation coupling parameter of the dynamical systems analysis. This indicates that there is a strong interaction between temperature and precipitation during compound events. In winter, we find no significant trend in the coupling between temperature and precipitation. However in summer, we find a significant upward trend which is likely driven by a stronger coupling during warm and dry days. Thermodynamic processes associated with long-term MED warming can best explain the trend, which intensifies compound warm–dry events.

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“…We term the days with α > 90 th quantile of the full-year distribution over the whole time-period being analysed compound dynamical extremes (CDEs). The two indicators, both in their monovariate and bivariate forms, successfully reflect large-scale features of atmospheric motions, and have recently been applied to a range of different climate variables over different geographical domains (Faranda et al, 2017a(Faranda et al, , b, 2019(Faranda et al, , 2020Messori et al, 2017;Rodrigues et al, 2018;Hochman et al, 2019Hochman et al, , 2020De Luca et al, 2020 Figure 1. Co-recurrence ratio (α) and local co-persistence θ −1 T max,P JJA means for ERA5 during the 1979-2018 period over the Mediterranean.…”

Section: Dynamical Systems Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compound Hot-Dry and Cold-Wet Dynamical Extremes Over the Mediterranean

Luca¹,

Messori²,

Faranda³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Abstract. The Mediterranean (MED) basin is a climate change hot-spot that has seen drying and a pronounced increase in heatwaves over the last century. At the same time, it is experiencing increasing heavy precipitation during wintertime cold spells. Understanding and quantifying the risks from compound events over the MED is paramount for present and future disaster risk reduction measures. Here, we apply a novel method to study compound events based on dynamical systems theory and analyse compound temperature and precipitation anomalies over the MED from 1979 to 2018. The dynamical systems analysis measures the strength of the coupling between different atmospheric variables over the MED. Further, we consider compound hot-dry days in summer and cold-wet days in winter. Our results show that these hot-dry and cold-wet compound days are associated with maxima in the temperature–precipitation coupling parameter of the dynamical systems analysis. This indicates that there is a strong interaction between temperature and precipitation during compound events. In summer, we find a significant upward trend in the coupling between temperature and precipitation over 1979–2018, which is likely driven by a stronger coupling during hot and dry days. Thermodynamic processes associated with long-term MED warming can best explain the trend. No such trend is found for wintertime cold-wet compound events. Our findings suggest that long-term warming strengthens the coupling of temperature and precipitation which intensifies hot-dry compound events.

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The dynamics of cyclones in the twentyfirst century: the Eastern Mediterranean as an example

Cited by 36 publications

References 83 publications

Dynamical systems theory sheds new light on compound climate extremes in Europe and Eastern North America

Dynamical systems theory sheds new light on compound climate extremes in Europe and Eastern North America

Compound warm–dry and cold–wet events over the Mediterranean

Compound Hot-Dry and Cold-Wet Dynamical Extremes Over the Mediterranean

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