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Title: Persistent cold air outbreaks over North America in a warming climate

Journal Article · · Environmental Research Letters
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This study examines future changes of cold air outbreaks (CAO) using a multi-model ensemble of global climate simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 as well as regional high resolution climate simulations. In the future, while robust decrease of CAO duration dominates in most regions, the magnitude of decrease over northwestern U.S. is much smaller than the surrounding regions. We identified statistically significant increases in sea level pressure during CAO events centering over Yukon, Alaska, and Gulf of Alaska that advects continental cold air to northwestern U.S., leading to blocking and CAO events. Changes in large scale circulation contribute to about 50% of the enhanced sea level pressure anomaly conducive to CAO in northwestern U.S. in the future. High resolution regional simulations revealed potential contributions of increased existing snowpack to increased CAO in the near future over the Rocky Mountain, southwestern U.S., and Great Lakes areas through surface albedo effects, despite winter mean snow water equivalent decreases in the future. Overall, the multi-model projections emphasize that cold extremes do not completely disappear in a warming climate. Concomitant with the relatively smaller reduction in CAO events in northwestern U.S., the top 5 most extreme CAO events may still occur in the future, and wind chill warning will continue to have societal impacts in that region.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E)
Grant/Contract Number:
KP1703010; AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1222438
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1182878
Journal Information:
Environmental Research Letters, Journal Name: Environmental Research Letters Vol. 10 Journal Issue: 4; ISSN 1748-9326
Publisher:
IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United Kingdom
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 42 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
cold air outbreaks
sea level pressure
snow water equivalent
wind chill warning