A climate-change attribution retrospective of some impactful weather extremes of 2021
<p>The IPCC AR6 report outlines a general consensus that anthropogenic climate change is modifying the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as cold spells, heat waves, storms or floods. A pertinent question is then whether climate change may have affected the characteristics of a sp...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Copernicus Publications
2022-11-01
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| Series: | Weather and Climate Dynamics |
| Online Access: | https://wcd.copernicus.org/articles/3/1311/2022/wcd-3-1311-2022.pdf |
| _version_ | 1811308296236171264 |
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| author | D. Faranda D. Faranda D. Faranda S. Bourdin M. Ginesta M. Krouma R. Noyelle F. Pons P. Yiou G. Messori G. Messori G. Messori G. Messori |
| author_facet | D. Faranda D. Faranda D. Faranda S. Bourdin M. Ginesta M. Krouma R. Noyelle F. Pons P. Yiou G. Messori G. Messori G. Messori G. Messori |
| author_sort | D. Faranda |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | <p>The IPCC AR6 report outlines a general consensus that anthropogenic climate change is modifying the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as cold spells, heat waves, storms or floods. A pertinent question is then whether climate change may have affected the characteristics of a specific extreme event or whether such event would have even been possible in the absence of climate change. Here, we address this question by performing an attribution of some major extreme events that occurred in 2021 over Europe and North America: the Winter Storm Filomena, the French spring cold spell, the Westphalia floods, the Mediterranean summer heat wave, Hurricane Ida, the Po Valley tornado outbreak, Medicane Apollo and the late-autumn Scandinavian cold spell. We focus on the role of the atmospheric circulation associated with the events and its typicality in present (factual world) and past climate conditions (counterfactual world) – defined using the ERA5 dataset 1950 to present. We first identify the most similar sea-level pressure patterns to the extreme events of interest in the factual and counterfactual worlds – so-called analogues. We then compute significant shifts in the spatial characteristics, persistence, predictability, seasonality and other characteristics of these analogues. We also diagnose whether in the present climate the analogues of the studied events lead to warmer/cooler or dryer/wetter conditions than in the past. Finally we verify whether the El Niño–Southern Oscillation and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation may explain interdecadal changes in the analogues' characteristics. We find that most of the extreme events we investigate are significantly modified in the present climate with respect to the past, because of changes in the location, persistence and/or seasonality of cyclonic/anticyclonic patterns in the sea-level pressure analogues. One of the events, Medicane Apollo, appears to be a black swan of the atmospheric circulation, with poor-quality analogues. Our approach, complementary to the statistical extreme-event attribution methods in the literature, points to the potentially important role of the atmospheric circulation in attribution studies.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T09:20:39Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-0d9951ba81c24e22af9ac6467324bce7 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2698-4016 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T09:20:39Z |
| publishDate | 2022-11-01 |
| publisher | Copernicus Publications |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Weather and Climate Dynamics |
| spelling | doaj.art-0d9951ba81c24e22af9ac6467324bce72022-12-22T02:52:37ZengCopernicus PublicationsWeather and Climate Dynamics2698-40162022-11-0131311134010.5194/wcd-3-1311-2022A climate-change attribution retrospective of some impactful weather extremes of 2021D. Faranda0D. Faranda1D. Faranda2S. Bourdin3M. Ginesta4M. Krouma5R. Noyelle6F. Pons7P. Yiou8G. Messori9G. Messori10G. Messori11G. Messori12Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, UMR 8212 CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, IPSL, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, FranceLondon Mathematical Laboratory, 8 Margravine Gardens London, London W6 8RH, UKLMD/IPSL, École Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University, Paris, FranceLaboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, UMR 8212 CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, IPSL, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, FranceLaboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, UMR 8212 CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, IPSL, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, FranceLaboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, UMR 8212 CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, IPSL, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, FranceLaboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, UMR 8212 CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, IPSL, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, FranceLaboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, UMR 8212 CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, IPSL, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, FranceLaboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, UMR 8212 CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, IPSL, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, FranceDepartment of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, SwedenCentre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science (CNDS), Uppsala, SwedenDepartment of Meteorology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, SwedenBolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm, Sweden<p>The IPCC AR6 report outlines a general consensus that anthropogenic climate change is modifying the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as cold spells, heat waves, storms or floods. A pertinent question is then whether climate change may have affected the characteristics of a specific extreme event or whether such event would have even been possible in the absence of climate change. Here, we address this question by performing an attribution of some major extreme events that occurred in 2021 over Europe and North America: the Winter Storm Filomena, the French spring cold spell, the Westphalia floods, the Mediterranean summer heat wave, Hurricane Ida, the Po Valley tornado outbreak, Medicane Apollo and the late-autumn Scandinavian cold spell. We focus on the role of the atmospheric circulation associated with the events and its typicality in present (factual world) and past climate conditions (counterfactual world) – defined using the ERA5 dataset 1950 to present. We first identify the most similar sea-level pressure patterns to the extreme events of interest in the factual and counterfactual worlds – so-called analogues. We then compute significant shifts in the spatial characteristics, persistence, predictability, seasonality and other characteristics of these analogues. We also diagnose whether in the present climate the analogues of the studied events lead to warmer/cooler or dryer/wetter conditions than in the past. Finally we verify whether the El Niño–Southern Oscillation and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation may explain interdecadal changes in the analogues' characteristics. We find that most of the extreme events we investigate are significantly modified in the present climate with respect to the past, because of changes in the location, persistence and/or seasonality of cyclonic/anticyclonic patterns in the sea-level pressure analogues. One of the events, Medicane Apollo, appears to be a black swan of the atmospheric circulation, with poor-quality analogues. Our approach, complementary to the statistical extreme-event attribution methods in the literature, points to the potentially important role of the atmospheric circulation in attribution studies.</p>https://wcd.copernicus.org/articles/3/1311/2022/wcd-3-1311-2022.pdf |
| spellingShingle | D. Faranda D. Faranda D. Faranda S. Bourdin M. Ginesta M. Krouma R. Noyelle F. Pons P. Yiou G. Messori G. Messori G. Messori G. Messori A climate-change attribution retrospective of some impactful weather extremes of 2021 Weather and Climate Dynamics |
| title | A climate-change attribution retrospective of some impactful weather extremes of 2021 |
| title_full | A climate-change attribution retrospective of some impactful weather extremes of 2021 |
| title_fullStr | A climate-change attribution retrospective of some impactful weather extremes of 2021 |
| title_full_unstemmed | A climate-change attribution retrospective of some impactful weather extremes of 2021 |
| title_short | A climate-change attribution retrospective of some impactful weather extremes of 2021 |
| title_sort | climate change attribution retrospective of some impactful weather extremes of 2021 |
| url | https://wcd.copernicus.org/articles/3/1311/2022/wcd-3-1311-2022.pdf |
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