Dataset Information

Snow occurrence changes over the central and eastern United States under future warming scenarios.

ABSTRACT: Changes of snow occurrence across the central and eastern United States under future warming for the late 21(st) century are investigated by applying an empirical hyperbolic tangent function to both observed and downscaled high spatial resolution (~12.5?km) daily temperature and precipitation, to compare the historical (1981-2000) and future (2081-2100) snow occurrence. The observed distributions of snow frequency show that snow-rain transition zones are mainly zonally distributed, since they are largely determined by temperature, with slight shifts to the south over the Appalachian Mountains. The snow-rain transition zone is located around 38-46°N for November and March, and 32-42°N for winter months (DJF). These observed patterns are reproduced well for the historical period by an ensemble average of multiple general circulation models (GCMs). The probabilistic projections show that the snow-rain transition zone will shift to the north under the background of global warming at magnitudes of 2-6?°C, indicating that large areas will experience a partial, or even a very large, loss of snow occurrence in the future. The northward shifts are about 2° latitude under the representative concentration pathways 4.5 (RCP4.5) scenario and 4° latitude under the RCP8.5 scenario. The percentages of the area losing snow occurrence are also assessed.

SUBMITTER: Ning L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4653631 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Snow occurrence changes over the central and eastern United States under future warming scenarios.

Ning Liang L Bradley Raymond S RS

Scientific reports 20151120

Changes of snow occurrence across the central and eastern United States under future warming for the late 21(st) century are investigated by applying an empirical hyperbolic tangent function to both observed and downscaled high spatial resolution (~12.5 km) daily temperature and precipitation, to compare the historical (1981-2000) and future (2081-2100) snow occurrence. The observed distributions of snow frequency show that snow-rain transition zones are mainly zonally distributed, since they ar ...[more]

PMID: 26584522

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Project description:We perform a statistical climatological study of the synoptic- to meso-scale weather conditions favoring significant tornado occurrence to empirically investigate the existence of long term temporal trends. To identify environments that favor tornadoes, we apply an empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis to temperature, relative humidity, and winds from the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications Version 2 (MERRA-2) dataset. We consider MERRA-2 data and tornado data from 1980 to 2017 over four adjacent study regions that span the Central, Midwestern, and Southeastern United States. To identify which EOFs are related to significant tornado occurrence, we fit two separate groups of logistic regression models. The first group (LEOF models) estimates the probability of occurrence of a significant tornado day (EF2-EF5) within each region. The second group (IEOF models) classifies the intensity of tornadic days either as strong (EF3-EF5) or weak (EF1-EF2). When compared to approaches using proxies such as convective available potential energy, our EOF approach is advantageous for two main reasons: first, the EOF approach allows for the discovery of important synoptic- to mesoscale variables previously not considered in the tornado science literature; second, proxy-based analyses may not capture important aspects of three-dimensional atmospheric conditions represented by the EOFs. Indeed, one of our main novel findings is the importance of a stratospheric forcing mode on occurrence of significant tornadoes. Other important novel findings are the existence of long-term temporal trends in the stratospheric forcing mode, in a dry line mode, and in an ageostrophic circulation mode related to the jet stream configuration. A relative risk analysis also indicates that changes in stratospheric forcings are partially or completely offsetting increased tornado risk associated with the dry line mode, except in the eastern Midwest region where tornado risk is increasing.

Dataset Information

Snow occurrence changes over the central and eastern United States under future warming scenarios.

Publications

Snow occurrence changes over the central and eastern United States under future warming scenarios.

Similar Datasets

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