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Mediterranean warm-core cyclones in a warmer world

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Abstract

Regional climate model projections over the Mediterranean region are analysed for the presence of intense, warm-core lows that share some of the characteristics of tropical cyclones. The results indicate that the number of such systems decreases in a warmer world, particularly in winter. Comparison of the simulated numbers to changes in relevant climate diagnostics suggests that numbers decrease due to an increasingly hostile environment for storm formation, combined with a general poleward shift in the incidence of wintertime lows over western Europe.

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Acknowledgments

The first author would like to thank the University of Melbourne and ICTP, which both provided partial funding for his visit to ICTP in October–December 2010. The authors would also like to thank the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) for the use of their tropical cyclone tracking scheme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, 3010, Australia

    Kevin Walsh

  2. International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy

    Filippo Giorgi & Erika Coppola

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  1. Kevin Walsh
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  2. Filippo Giorgi
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Correspondence to Kevin Walsh.

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Walsh, K., Giorgi, F. & Coppola, E. Mediterranean warm-core cyclones in a warmer world. Clim Dyn 42, 1053–1066 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-013-1723-y

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