Contribution of Global Warming and Atmospheric Circulation to the Hottest Spring in Eastern China in 2018
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• Original Paper •
Contribution of Global Warming and Atmospheric Circulation to the Hottest Spring in Eastern China in 2018 Chunhui LU1, Ying SUN*1,3, Nikolaos CHRISTIDIS2, and Peter A. STOTT2 1National
Climate Center, Laboratory for Climate Studies, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing 100081, China 2Met 3Collaborative
Office Hadley Centre, Met Office, Exeter EX1 3PB, UK
Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters,
Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China (Received 2 April 2020; revised 24 June 2020; accepted 8 July 2020) ABSTRACT The spring of 2018 was the hottest on record since 1951 over eastern China based on station observations, being 2.5°C higher than the 1961−90 mean and with more than 900 stations reaching the record spring mean temperature. This event exerted serious impacts in the region on agriculture, plant phenology, electricity transmission systems, and human health. In this paper, the contributions of human-induced climate change and anomalous anticyclonic circulation to this event are investigated using the newly homogenized observations and updated Met Office Hadley Centre system for attribution of extreme events, as well as CanESM2 (Second Generation Canadian Earth System Model) simulations. Results indicate that both anthropogenic influences and anomalous anticyclonic circulation played significant roles in increasing the probability of the 2018 hottest spring. Quantitative estimates of the probability ratio show that anthropogenic forcing may have increased the chance of this event by ten-fold, while the anomalous circulation increased it by approximately two-fold. The persistent anomalous anticyclonic circulation located on the north side of China blocked the air with lower temperature from high latitudes into eastern China. Without anthropogenic forcing or without the anomalous circulation in northern China, the occurrence probability of the extreme warm spring is significantly reduced. Key words: extreme warm spring, extreme event attribution, anthropogenic influence, circulation effect Citation: Lu, C. H., Y. Sun, N. Christidis, and P. A. Stott, 2020: Contribution of global warming and atmospheric circulation to the hottest spring in eastern China in 2018. Adv. Atmos. Sci., 37(11), 1285−1294, https://doi.org/10.1007/ s00376-020-0088-5. Article Highlights:
• Both anthropogenic forcing and anomalous circulation increased the chance of the 2018 hottest spring in eastern China. • Results from large-ensemble runs with a coupled climate model and an atmosphere-only model indicate similar findings. • Without anthropogenic forcing or without the anomalous circulation the probability of the extreme event is significantly
reduced.
1. Introduction In the context of global warming, observed warm extremes have clearly become hotter, more frequent, and longer lasting (Zwiers et al., 2011; Min et al., 2013; Morak et al., 2013; Lu et al., 2018) than before. Extreme temperature events usually cause more dest
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