Storylines for future changes of the North Atlantic jet and associated impacts on the UK
Abstract Climate projections for the UK exhibit substantial uncertainty, and this uncertainty is a hindrance to robust and timely decision making on both adaptation and mitigation policy issues. A large part of the uncertainty is associated with dynamical changes of the regional atmospheric circulat...
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crwiley:10.1002/joc.8095 2024-09-15T18:21:50+00:00 Storylines for future changes of the North Atlantic jet and associated impacts on the UK Harvey, Ben Hawkins, Ed Sutton, Rowan Natural Environment Research Council 2023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/joc.8095 https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/joc.8095 en eng Wiley http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ International Journal of Climatology volume 43, issue 10, page 4424-4441 ISSN 0899-8418 1097-0088 journal-article 2023 crwiley https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.8095 2024-08-27T04:29:17Z Abstract Climate projections for the UK exhibit substantial uncertainty, and this uncertainty is a hindrance to robust and timely decision making on both adaptation and mitigation policy issues. A large part of the uncertainty is associated with dynamical changes of the regional atmospheric circulation rather than thermodynamic changes which are better constrained by model simulations. Of particular importance for the UK is the extent to which the North Atlantic jet will change over coming decades and the impact this will have on weather and climate in the region. In this article, we propose the use of jet‐based storylines for assessing and communicating uncertainty in climate projections for the UK, wherein changes in each impact are explicitly conditioned on changes in the North Atlantic jet. This approach provides a framework for evaluating the impacts associated with a range of plausible future climate outcomes for the UK, including outcomes that may not be well represented in the current generation of climate models, and for communicating these potential outcomes. We construct a simple yet useful set of future jet storylines for both summer and winter and for 2°C and 4°C global warming levels and illustrate the utility of the approach by evaluating the impact of each jet storyline on future changes in UK precipitation. In doing so, we demonstrate that the relationships between the jet and UK precipitation are consistent between observed interannual variability and projected changes. This finding increases our confidence in projecting changes in UK precipitation associated with each storyline. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic Wiley Online Library International Journal of Climatology 43 10 4424 4441 |
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Wiley Online Library |
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crwiley |
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English |
description |
Abstract Climate projections for the UK exhibit substantial uncertainty, and this uncertainty is a hindrance to robust and timely decision making on both adaptation and mitigation policy issues. A large part of the uncertainty is associated with dynamical changes of the regional atmospheric circulation rather than thermodynamic changes which are better constrained by model simulations. Of particular importance for the UK is the extent to which the North Atlantic jet will change over coming decades and the impact this will have on weather and climate in the region. In this article, we propose the use of jet‐based storylines for assessing and communicating uncertainty in climate projections for the UK, wherein changes in each impact are explicitly conditioned on changes in the North Atlantic jet. This approach provides a framework for evaluating the impacts associated with a range of plausible future climate outcomes for the UK, including outcomes that may not be well represented in the current generation of climate models, and for communicating these potential outcomes. We construct a simple yet useful set of future jet storylines for both summer and winter and for 2°C and 4°C global warming levels and illustrate the utility of the approach by evaluating the impact of each jet storyline on future changes in UK precipitation. In doing so, we demonstrate that the relationships between the jet and UK precipitation are consistent between observed interannual variability and projected changes. This finding increases our confidence in projecting changes in UK precipitation associated with each storyline. |
author2 |
Natural Environment Research Council |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Harvey, Ben Hawkins, Ed Sutton, Rowan |
spellingShingle |
Harvey, Ben Hawkins, Ed Sutton, Rowan Storylines for future changes of the North Atlantic jet and associated impacts on the UK |
author_facet |
Harvey, Ben Hawkins, Ed Sutton, Rowan |
author_sort |
Harvey, Ben |
title |
Storylines for future changes of the North Atlantic jet and associated impacts on the UK |
title_short |
Storylines for future changes of the North Atlantic jet and associated impacts on the UK |
title_full |
Storylines for future changes of the North Atlantic jet and associated impacts on the UK |
title_fullStr |
Storylines for future changes of the North Atlantic jet and associated impacts on the UK |
title_full_unstemmed |
Storylines for future changes of the North Atlantic jet and associated impacts on the UK |
title_sort |
storylines for future changes of the north atlantic jet and associated impacts on the uk |
publisher |
Wiley |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/joc.8095 https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/joc.8095 |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_source |
International Journal of Climatology volume 43, issue 10, page 4424-4441 ISSN 0899-8418 1097-0088 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.8095 |
container_title |
International Journal of Climatology |
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43 |
container_issue |
10 |
container_start_page |
4424 |
op_container_end_page |
4441 |
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1810460821032009728 |