Abstract
Hazardous weather related to the occurrence of severe thunderstorms including tornadoes, high-winds, and hail cause significant damage globally to life and property every year. Yet the impact on these storms from a warming climate remains a difficult task due to their transient nature. In this study we investigate the change in large-scale environments in which severe thunderstorms form during twenty-first century warming (RCP2.6 and RCP8.5) in a group of RegCM CORDEX-CORE simulations. Severe potential is measured in terms of Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) and vertical wind-shear during the severe seasons in three regions which are known to currently be prone to severe hazards: North America, subtropical South America, and eastern India and Bangladesh. In every region, environments supportive for severe thunderstorms are projected to increase during the warm season months in both the RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 scenarios during the twenty-first century. The number of days supportive for severe thunderstorms increases by several days per season over the vast majority of each region by the end of the century. Analyzing the CAPE and shear trends during the twenty-first century, we find seasonally and regionally specific changes driving the increased severe potential. Twenty-first century surface warming is clearly driving a robust increase in CAPE in all regions, however poleward displacement of vertical shear in the future leads to the displacement of severe environments over North America and South America. The results found here relate that severe impacts in the future cannot be generalized globally, and that regionally specific changes in vertical shear may drive future movement of regions prone to severe weather.
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Acknowledgements
The RegCM simulations used in this study by the ICTP institute have been completed thanks to the support of the CINECA supercomputing center, Bologna, Italy.Additional computing resources were provided by the High-Performance Computing group at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics. Simulations carried out for the South Asian domain were completed with support by the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility and the National Climate-Computing Research Center at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We would also like to thank the comments and contributions of two anonymous reviewers to this study. Additionally, the authors would like to thank Michelle Reboita for her input and discussions regarding the study. This research is supported by funds from the United Nations, UNESCO, and the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics.
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Glazer, R.H., Torres-Alavez, J.A., Coppola, E. et al. Projected changes to severe thunderstorm environments as a result of twenty-first century warming from RegCM CORDEX-CORE simulations. Clim Dyn 57, 1595–1613 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05439-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05439-4