Hylke de Vries

Western European cold spells in current and future climate

This paper discusses western European cold spells (where temperature falls below the 10\\% quantile of the winter temperature distribution) in current and future climate. It is demonstrated that many of the projected future changes in cold-spell statistics (duration, return period, intensity) can be explained by changes in the mean (increase) and variance (decrease) of the winter temperature distribution. After correcting for these changes (by subtracting the mean temperature and by dividing by the standard deviation), future cold-spell statistics display no major changes outside estimated error bounds. In absolute terms however, the future cold spells are projected to become ~5 degrees warmer (and remain above freezing point), thus having a significant climatic impact. An important contributor to the projected future decrease of temperature variance is shown to be the reduction of the mean zonal temperature gradient (land-sea contrast). These results have been obtained using a 17-member ensemble of climate-model simulations with current and future concentration of greenhouse gases.

Cold Extremes in North America vs. Mild Weather in Europe: The Winter of 2013–14 in the Context of a Warming World

AbstractThe winter of 2013–14 had unusual weather in many parts of the world. Here we analyze the cold extremes that were widely reported in North America and the lack of cold extremes in western Europe. We perform a statistical analysis of cold extremes at two representative stations in these areas: Chicago, Illinois, and De Bilt, the Netherlands. This shows that the lowest minimum temperature of the winter was not very unusual in Chicago, even in the current warmer climate. Around 1950 it would have been completely normal. The same holds for multiday cold periods. Only the whole winter temperature was unusual, with a return time larger than 25 years. In the Netherlands, the opposite holds: the absence of any cold waves was highly unusual even now, and would have been extremely improbable halfway through the previous century. These results are representative of other stations in the regions. The difference is due to the skewness of the temperature distribution. In both locations, cold extremes are more l...

Robust Future Changes in Temperature Variability under Greenhouse Gas Forcing and the Relationship with Thermal Advection

AbstractRecent temperature extremes have highlighted the importance of assessing projected changes in the variability of temperature as well as the mean. A large fraction of present-day temperature variance is associated with thermal advection, as anomalous winds blow across the land–sea temperature contrast, for instance. Models project robust heterogeneity in the twenty-first-century warming pattern under greenhouse gas forcing, resulting in land–sea temperature contrasts increasing in summer and decreasing in winter and the pole-to-equator temperature gradient weakening in winter. In this study, future changes in monthly variability of near-surface temperature in the 17-member ensemble ESSENCE (Ensemble Simulations of Extreme Weather Events under Nonlinear Climate Change) are assessed. In winter, variability in midlatitudes decreases whereas in very high latitudes and the tropics it increases. In summer, variability increases over most land areas and in the tropics, with decreasing variability in high ...

Future snowfall in western and central Europe projected with a high‐resolution regional climate model ensemble

Snowfall frequency and intensity are influenced strongly by climate change. Here we separate the basic frequency change resulting from a gradually warming climate, from the intensity changes, by focusing on snowfall on days where the mean temperature is below freezing (Hellmann days). Using an ensemble of simulations, obtained with the high-resolution regional climate model KNMI-RACMO2 driven by the EC-EARTH global climate model and RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 forcing scenarios, we show that in addition to the strong decrease in the number of Hellmann days, also a substantial reduction in the mean Hellmann-day snowfall can be expected over large parts of western and central Europe. Moreover, seasonal snowfall extremes display trends that are comparable or even larger. Projected intensity reductions are locally as large as −30% per degree warming, thus being in sharp contrast to mean winter precipitation, which increases in most future climate scenarios. Exceptions are the high Alps and parts of Scandinavia, which may see an increase of up to +10% per degree warming.

Baroclinic Waves with Parameterized Effects of Moisture Interpreted Using Rossby Wave Components

Abstract A theoretical framework is developed for the evolution of baroclinic waves with latent heat release parameterized in terms of vertical velocity. Both wave–conditional instability of the second kind (CISK) and large-scale rain approaches are included. The new quasigeostrophic framework covers evolution from general initial conditions on zonal flows with vertical shear, planetary vorticity gradient, a lower boundary, and a tropopause. The formulation is given completely in terms of potential vorticity, enabling the partition of perturbations into Rossby wave components, just as for the dry problem. Both modal and nonmodal development can be understood to a good approximation in terms of propagation and interaction between these components alone. The key change with moisture is that growing normal modes are described in terms of four counterpropagating Rossby wave (CRW) components rather than two. Moist CRWs exist above and below the maximum in latent heating, in addition to the upper- and lower-lev...

How to interpret expert judgment assessments of 21st century sea-level rise

In a recent paper Bamber and Aspinall (Nat Clim Change 3:424–427, 2013) (BA13) investigated the sea-level rise that may result from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets during the 21st century. Using data from an expert judgment elicitation, they obtained a final high-end (P95) value of +84 cm integrated sea-level change from the ice sheets for the 2010–2100 period. However, one key message was left largely undiscussed: The experts had strongly diverging opinions about the ice-sheet contributions to sea-level rise. We argue that such (lack of) consensus should form an essential and integral part of the subsequent analysis of the data. By employing a method that keeps the level of consensus included, and that is also more robust to outliers and less dependent on the choice of the underlying distributions, we obtain on the basis of the same data a considerably lower high-end estimate for the ice-sheet contribution, +53 cm (+38-77 cm interquartile range of “expert consensus”). The method compares favourably with another recent study on expert judgement derived sea-level rise by Horton et al. (Q Sci Rev 84:1–6, 2014). Furthermore we show that the BA13 results are sensitive to a number of assumptions, such as the shape and minimum of the underlying distribution that were not part of the expert elicitation itself. Our analysis therefore demonstrates that one should be careful in considering high-end sea-level rise estimates as being well-determined and fixed numbers.

An Interpretation of Baroclinic Initial Value Problems: Results for Simple Basic States with Nonzero Interior PV Gradients

In the Eady model, where the meridional potential vorticity (PV) gradient is zero, perturbation energy growth can be partitioned cleanly into three mechanisms: (i) shear instability, (ii) resonance, and (iii) the Orr mechanism. Shear instability involves two-way interaction between Rossby edge waves on the ground and lid, resonance occurs as interior PV anomalies excite the edge waves, and the Orr mechanism involves only interior PV anomalies. These mechanisms have distinct implications for the structural and temporal linear evolution of perturbations. Here, a new framework is developed in which the same mechanisms can be distinguished for growth on basic states with nonzero interior PV gradients. It is further shown that the evolution from quite general initial conditions can be accurately described (peak error in perturbation total energy typically less than 10%) by a reduced system that involves only three Rossby wave components. Two of these are counterpropagating Rossby waves—that is, generalizations of the Rossby edge waves when the interior PV gradient is nonzero—whereas the other component depends on the structure of the initial condition and its PV is advected passively with the shear flow. In the cases considered, the three-component model outperforms approximate solutions based on truncating a modal or singular vector basis.

Sea surface height variability in the North East Atlantic from satellite altimetry

AbstractData from 21 years of satellite altimeter measurements are used to identify and understand the major contributing components of sea surface height variability (SSV) on monthly time-scales in the North East Atlantic. A number of SSV drivers is considered, which are categorised into two groups; local (wind and sea surface temperature) and remote (sea level pressure and the North Atlantic oscillation index). A multiple linear regression model is constructed to model the SSV for a specific target area in the North Sea basin. Cross-correlations between candidate regressors potentially lead to ambiguity in the interpretation of the results. We therefore use an objective hierarchical selection method based on variance inflation factors to select the optimal number of regressors for the target area and accept these into the regression model if they can be associated to SSV through a direct underlying physical forcing mechanism. Results show that a region of high SSV exists off the west coast of Denmark and that it can be represented well with a regression model that uses local wind, sea surface temperature and sea level pressure as primary regressors. The regression model developed here helps to understand sea level change in the North East Atlantic. The methodology is generalised and easily applied to other regions.

Resolution dependence of circulation forced future central European summer drying

Climate model based projections suggest a drying of the central European summer climate toward the end of the century. In this study we investigate the influence of the spatial resolution of an atmosphere-only climate model (EC-Earth at two resolutions, ~25 and ~112 km horizontal) on the simulated summer drying in this area. High resolution models have a more realistic representation of circulation in the current climate and could provide more confidence on future projections of circulation forced drying. We find that the high resolution model is characterized by a stronger drying in spring and summer, mainly forced by circulation changes. The initial spring drying intensifies the summer drying by a positive soil moisture feedback. The results are confirmed by finding analogs of the difference between the high and medium-resolution model circulation in the natural variability in another ensemble of climate model simulations. In the current climate, these show the same precipitation difference pattern resulting from the summer circulation difference. In the future climate the spring circulation also plays a key role. We conclude that the reduction of circulation biases due to increased resolution gives higher confidence in the strong drying trend projected for central Europe by the high-resolution version of the model.

Understanding the spatial variation of sea level rise in the North Sea using satellite altimetry

This paper examines the spatial variation of sea surface height trends in the North Sea Basin as seen by satellite altimetry and assesses its underlying causes. Changes in the potential temperature and salinity of the North Sea are transposed into corresponding changes in sea surface height and regional anomalies of linear sea level trend calculated. The same is carried out for the meteorological processes which act on the sea surface. The steric and meteorological regional sea level rise anomalies are summed with those from contributions from land ice and compared against the values seen by satellite altimetry over the period 1993–2014. Results show that there is good agreement between the observations and the reconstruction. The local meteorological contribution appears to be most important in describing regional variation in linear sea level rise and is reinforced with a local halosteric contribution which shows a similar spatial pattern.