Global meteorological influences on the record UK rainfall of winter 2013–14
The UK experienced record average rainfall in winter 2013–14, leading to widespread and prolonged flooding. The immediate cause of this exceptional rainfall was a very strong and persistent cyclonic atmospheric circulation over the North East Atlantic Ocean. This was related to a very strong North A...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:dcc23a7c4ba3429097875304e44fbab4 2023-09-05T13:21:39+02:00 Global meteorological influences on the record UK rainfall of winter 2013–14 Jeff R Knight Anna Maidens Peter A G Watson Martin Andrews Stephen Belcher Gilbert Brunet David Fereday Chris K Folland Adam A Scaife Julia Slingo 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa693c https://doaj.org/article/dcc23a7c4ba3429097875304e44fbab4 EN eng IOP Publishing https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa693c https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa693c 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/dcc23a7c4ba3429097875304e44fbab4 Environmental Research Letters, Vol 12, Iss 7, p 074001 (2017) winter 2013–14 floods UK rainfall atmospheric circulation Rossby waves climate change Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 article 2017 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa693c 2023-08-13T00:37:40Z The UK experienced record average rainfall in winter 2013–14, leading to widespread and prolonged flooding. The immediate cause of this exceptional rainfall was a very strong and persistent cyclonic atmospheric circulation over the North East Atlantic Ocean. This was related to a very strong North Atlantic jet stream which resulted in numerous damaging wind storms. These exceptional meteorological conditions have led to renewed questions about whether anthropogenic climate change is noticeably influencing extreme weather. The regional weather pattern responsible for the extreme UK winter coincided with highly anomalous conditions across the globe. We assess the contributions from various possible remote forcing regions using sets of ocean–atmosphere model relaxation experiments, where winds and temperatures are constrained to be similar to those observed in winter 2013–14 within specified atmospheric domains. We find that influences from the tropics were likely to have played a significant role in the development of the unusual extra-tropical circulation, including a role for the tropical Atlantic sector. Additionally, a stronger and more stable stratospheric polar vortex, likely associated with a strong westerly phase of the stratospheric Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO), appears to have contributed to the extreme conditions. While intrinsic climatic variability clearly has the largest effect on the generation of extremes, results from an analysis which segregates circulation-related and residual rainfall variability suggest that emerging climate change signals made a secondary contribution to extreme rainfall in winter 2013–14. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic North East Atlantic Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Environmental Research Letters 12 7 074001 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
winter 2013–14 floods UK rainfall atmospheric circulation Rossby waves climate change Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
spellingShingle |
winter 2013–14 floods UK rainfall atmospheric circulation Rossby waves climate change Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 Jeff R Knight Anna Maidens Peter A G Watson Martin Andrews Stephen Belcher Gilbert Brunet David Fereday Chris K Folland Adam A Scaife Julia Slingo Global meteorological influences on the record UK rainfall of winter 2013–14 |
topic_facet |
winter 2013–14 floods UK rainfall atmospheric circulation Rossby waves climate change Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
description |
The UK experienced record average rainfall in winter 2013–14, leading to widespread and prolonged flooding. The immediate cause of this exceptional rainfall was a very strong and persistent cyclonic atmospheric circulation over the North East Atlantic Ocean. This was related to a very strong North Atlantic jet stream which resulted in numerous damaging wind storms. These exceptional meteorological conditions have led to renewed questions about whether anthropogenic climate change is noticeably influencing extreme weather. The regional weather pattern responsible for the extreme UK winter coincided with highly anomalous conditions across the globe. We assess the contributions from various possible remote forcing regions using sets of ocean–atmosphere model relaxation experiments, where winds and temperatures are constrained to be similar to those observed in winter 2013–14 within specified atmospheric domains. We find that influences from the tropics were likely to have played a significant role in the development of the unusual extra-tropical circulation, including a role for the tropical Atlantic sector. Additionally, a stronger and more stable stratospheric polar vortex, likely associated with a strong westerly phase of the stratospheric Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO), appears to have contributed to the extreme conditions. While intrinsic climatic variability clearly has the largest effect on the generation of extremes, results from an analysis which segregates circulation-related and residual rainfall variability suggest that emerging climate change signals made a secondary contribution to extreme rainfall in winter 2013–14. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Jeff R Knight Anna Maidens Peter A G Watson Martin Andrews Stephen Belcher Gilbert Brunet David Fereday Chris K Folland Adam A Scaife Julia Slingo |
author_facet |
Jeff R Knight Anna Maidens Peter A G Watson Martin Andrews Stephen Belcher Gilbert Brunet David Fereday Chris K Folland Adam A Scaife Julia Slingo |
author_sort |
Jeff R Knight |
title |
Global meteorological influences on the record UK rainfall of winter 2013–14 |
title_short |
Global meteorological influences on the record UK rainfall of winter 2013–14 |
title_full |
Global meteorological influences on the record UK rainfall of winter 2013–14 |
title_fullStr |
Global meteorological influences on the record UK rainfall of winter 2013–14 |
title_full_unstemmed |
Global meteorological influences on the record UK rainfall of winter 2013–14 |
title_sort |
global meteorological influences on the record uk rainfall of winter 2013–14 |
publisher |
IOP Publishing |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa693c https://doaj.org/article/dcc23a7c4ba3429097875304e44fbab4 |
genre |
North Atlantic North East Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic North East Atlantic |
op_source |
Environmental Research Letters, Vol 12, Iss 7, p 074001 (2017) |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa693c https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa693c 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/dcc23a7c4ba3429097875304e44fbab4 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa693c |
container_title |
Environmental Research Letters |
container_volume |
12 |
container_issue |
7 |
container_start_page |
074001 |
_version_ |
1776202240780926976 |