November 13, 2017

expert reaction to research on storms and climate change

New research published in Nature Geoscience examine enhanced poleward movement of storms under climate change.

Dr Tom Bracegirdle, British Antarctic Survey, said:

“There is an urgent need for the scientific community to work together to understand the behaviour of mid-latitude cyclonic winter storms in a warming world.  By isolating the life cycle of individual storms from an analysis of many climate model simulations, this paper adds to the increasing evidence that we can expect more severe winter weather over the UK as cyclones move further poleward under global warming.”

Dr Amanda Maycock, Associate Professor in Climate Dynamics, University of Leeds

“Winter weather in the UK is strongly affected by low pressure weather systems that track in from the North Atlantic bringing strong winds and heavy rain. This study shows an important result that in a future warmer world these weather systems may track further northward than they do today. This could increase the risk of severe winter weather events in some parts of the UK.”

Prof. Piers Forster, Director of the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds, said:

“Climate change may lead to a decreased number to storms world-wide but not for the UK where we are already getting stronger winter storms due to a poleward shift of their track. These storms are bringing stronger winds and more intense rainfall to our shores. Fortunately, they are still not hurricane strength but Ophelia came close and we need to prepare for this becoming the new normal.”

* ‘Enhanced poleward propagation of storms under climate change’ by Talia Tamarin-Brodsky and Yohai Kaspi published in Nature Geoscience on Monday 13 November 2017.

Declared interests

None declared