Extratropical cyclones in a warmer, moister climate: a recent Atlantic analogue

Li, M., Woollings, T., Hodges, K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0894-229X and Masato, G. (2014) Extratropical cyclones in a warmer, moister climate: a recent Atlantic analogue. Geophysical Research Letters, 41 (23). pp. 8594-8601. ISSN 0094-8276 doi: 10.1002/2014GL062186

Abstract/Summary

Current climate model projections do not exhibit a large change in the intensity of extratropical cyclones. However, there are concerns that current models represent moist processes poorly, and this provides motivation for investigating observational evidence for how cyclones behave in warmer climates. In the North Atlantic in particular, recent decades provide a clear contrast between warm and cold climates due to Atlantic Multidecadal Variability. In this paper we investigate these periods as analogues which may provide a guide to future cyclone behavior. While temperature and moisture rise in recent warm periods as in the projections, differences in energetics and temperature gradients imply that these periods are only partial analogues. The main result from current reanalyses is that while increased cyclone-associated precipitation is seen in the recent warm periods, there is no robust evidence of an increase in cyclone intensity by other measures, such as maximum wind speed or vorticity. A set of low- and high-resolution model simulations are also studied, suggesting that changes in cyclone intensity may be different in higher-resolution reanalyses.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/41490
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	American Geophysical Union
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