Huang, J, Hitchcock, P, Maycock, AC orcid.org/0000-0002-6614-1127 et al. (2 more authors) (2021) Northern hemisphere cold air outbreaks are more likely to be severe during weak polar vortex conditions. Communications Earth & Environment, 2 (147). ISSN 2662-4435
Abstract
Severe cold air outbreaks have significant impacts on human health, energy use, agriculture, and transportation. Anomalous behavior of the Arctic stratospheric polar vortex provides an important source of subseasonal-to-seasonal predictability of Northern Hemisphere cold air outbreaks. Here, through reanalysis data for the period 1958–2019 and climate model simulations for preindustrial conditions, we show that weak stratospheric polar vortex conditions increase the risk of severe cold air outbreaks in mid-latitude East Asia by 100%, in contrast to only 40% for moderate cold air outbreaks. Such a disproportionate increase is also found in Europe, with an elevated risk persisting more than three weeks. By analysing the stream of polar cold air mass, we show that the polar vortex affects severe cold air outbreaks by modifying the inter-hemispheric transport of cold air mass. Using a novel method to assess Granger causality, we show that the polar vortex provides predictive information regarding severe cold air outbreaks over multiple regions in the Northern Hemisphere, which may help with mitigating their impact.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Inst for Climate & Atmos Science (ICAS) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/M018199/1 EU - European Union 820829 Leverhulme Trust PLP-2018-278 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 28 Jun 2021 11:28 |
Last Modified: | 01 Jun 2022 01:52 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s43247-021-00215-6 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:175553 |