Past and Future Trends in Clear-Air Turbulence over the Northern Hemisphere

• Main Authors: Foudad, Mohamed, Sanchez-Gomez, Emilia, Jaravel, Thomas, Rochoux, Mélanie C., Terray, Laurent
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Authorea, Inc. 2023
• Subjects: Pacific; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.22541/essoar.169945175.51799124/v1

Clear-Air Turbulence (CAT) is associated with wind shear in the vicinity of jet streams in upper atmospheric levels. This turbulence occurs in cloudless regions and causes most weather-related aircraft accidents. Recent studies have shown that in response to climate change, CAT could significantly increase over certain regions as a consequence of strengthening of jet streams. In this study we use several atmospheric reanalyses and coupled model experiments database to evaluate CAT recent and future changes in the Northern Hemisphere. Several CAT diagnostics are computed to assess the sensitivity of results to different turbulence representations. A significant positive trend in CAT frequency is found in the reanalyses in different regions in the Northern Hemisphere over the period 1980-2021. The signal-to-noise analysis shows that over North Africa, East Asia and Middle East the increase of CAT occurrence in the last decades is likely attributed to global warming. In contrast, over the North Atlantic and North Pacific the internal climate variability is too strong to detect a response to anthropogenic forcing in the observed trends. Future climate projections show that over several regions in the Northern Hemisphere, CAT is projected to increase with a high model agreement and independently of the CAT diagnostic used. The largest increase in CAT is projected to occur over East Asia. In the North Atlantic, large uncertainty remains due to lack of model agreement and differences among the various CAT diagnostics.