Current likelihood and dynamics of hot summers in the UK
Summer 2018 in the United Kingdom (UK) was its joint hottest on record and the associated impacts raise questions over societal resilience to extremes of this magnitude or greater occurring in upcoming years. Better information on the current likelihood of extreme and unprecedented events feeds into...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:c5a3bb1779494b689cf45d680ae4b129 2023-09-05T13:17:51+02:00 Current likelihood and dynamics of hot summers in the UK Gillian Kay Nick Dunstone Doug Smith Tyrone Dunbar Rosie Eade Adam Scaife 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abab32 https://doaj.org/article/c5a3bb1779494b689cf45d680ae4b129 EN eng IOP Publishing https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abab32 https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/abab32 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/c5a3bb1779494b689cf45d680ae4b129 Environmental Research Letters, Vol 15, Iss 9, p 094099 (2020) UK climate hot summers climate extremes climate risks tropical-extratropical links Arctic sea ice Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 article 2020 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abab32 2023-08-13T00:37:16Z Summer 2018 in the United Kingdom (UK) was its joint hottest on record and the associated impacts raise questions over societal resilience to extremes of this magnitude or greater occurring in upcoming years. Better information on the current likelihood of extreme and unprecedented events feeds into improved understanding of risk, relevant for policy and contingency planning. However, making robust estimates of likelihood is difficult given that extremes in the historical record are few by definition. We overcome this by using a large ensemble of initialised climate model simulations to assess the chance of exceeding summer 2018 temperatures in the current climate and find it to be ∼11% each year, although a weak circulation bias may mean this estimate is conservative. This likelihood has increased sharply over the last few decades. A one in 100-year event would bring summertime temperatures to the UK of approximately 1 °C above 2018, an anomaly similar to that of the notable hot summer of 1976. Subsetting the large ensemble enables characterisation of the dynamics around hot summers, and investigation of possible remote influences. Several circulation patterns bring warm temperatures to the UK, and it is likely that influences from different remote regions are active or dominant in different years. We present evidence suggesting roles for tropical precipitation anomalies via extratropical wave trains. Circulation anomalies associated with wet conditions in the Caribbean project particularly strongly onto the hot UK summer conditions, with a weaker signal from the tropical Pacific consistent with developing La Niña. We also highlight possible influence in some years from springtime high sea ice anomalies in the Sea of Okhotsk and low anomalies in the Barents/Kara seas. Building on this, we use new experiments that isolate the effects of opposing springtime sea ice anomalies in the two regions and find a causal relationship with the summertime circulation over the North Atlantic and northern Europe. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic North Atlantic Sea ice Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic Okhotsk Pacific Environmental Research Letters 15 9 094099 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
UK climate hot summers climate extremes climate risks tropical-extratropical links Arctic sea ice Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
spellingShingle |
UK climate hot summers climate extremes climate risks tropical-extratropical links Arctic sea ice Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 Gillian Kay Nick Dunstone Doug Smith Tyrone Dunbar Rosie Eade Adam Scaife Current likelihood and dynamics of hot summers in the UK |
topic_facet |
UK climate hot summers climate extremes climate risks tropical-extratropical links Arctic sea ice Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
description |
Summer 2018 in the United Kingdom (UK) was its joint hottest on record and the associated impacts raise questions over societal resilience to extremes of this magnitude or greater occurring in upcoming years. Better information on the current likelihood of extreme and unprecedented events feeds into improved understanding of risk, relevant for policy and contingency planning. However, making robust estimates of likelihood is difficult given that extremes in the historical record are few by definition. We overcome this by using a large ensemble of initialised climate model simulations to assess the chance of exceeding summer 2018 temperatures in the current climate and find it to be ∼11% each year, although a weak circulation bias may mean this estimate is conservative. This likelihood has increased sharply over the last few decades. A one in 100-year event would bring summertime temperatures to the UK of approximately 1 °C above 2018, an anomaly similar to that of the notable hot summer of 1976. Subsetting the large ensemble enables characterisation of the dynamics around hot summers, and investigation of possible remote influences. Several circulation patterns bring warm temperatures to the UK, and it is likely that influences from different remote regions are active or dominant in different years. We present evidence suggesting roles for tropical precipitation anomalies via extratropical wave trains. Circulation anomalies associated with wet conditions in the Caribbean project particularly strongly onto the hot UK summer conditions, with a weaker signal from the tropical Pacific consistent with developing La Niña. We also highlight possible influence in some years from springtime high sea ice anomalies in the Sea of Okhotsk and low anomalies in the Barents/Kara seas. Building on this, we use new experiments that isolate the effects of opposing springtime sea ice anomalies in the two regions and find a causal relationship with the summertime circulation over the North Atlantic and northern Europe. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Gillian Kay Nick Dunstone Doug Smith Tyrone Dunbar Rosie Eade Adam Scaife |
author_facet |
Gillian Kay Nick Dunstone Doug Smith Tyrone Dunbar Rosie Eade Adam Scaife |
author_sort |
Gillian Kay |
title |
Current likelihood and dynamics of hot summers in the UK |
title_short |
Current likelihood and dynamics of hot summers in the UK |
title_full |
Current likelihood and dynamics of hot summers in the UK |
title_fullStr |
Current likelihood and dynamics of hot summers in the UK |
title_full_unstemmed |
Current likelihood and dynamics of hot summers in the UK |
title_sort |
current likelihood and dynamics of hot summers in the uk |
publisher |
IOP Publishing |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abab32 https://doaj.org/article/c5a3bb1779494b689cf45d680ae4b129 |
geographic |
Arctic Okhotsk Pacific |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Okhotsk Pacific |
genre |
Arctic North Atlantic Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Arctic North Atlantic Sea ice |
op_source |
Environmental Research Letters, Vol 15, Iss 9, p 094099 (2020) |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abab32 https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/abab32 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/c5a3bb1779494b689cf45d680ae4b129 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abab32 |
container_title |
Environmental Research Letters |
container_volume |
15 |
container_issue |
9 |
container_start_page |
094099 |
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1776198856662319104 |