Did the 2022 strong polar vortex make serial extratropical cyclone clustering more likely? (StratClust)

2022年的强极地涡旋是否使系列温带气旋聚集的可能性更大？

• 批准号: NE/X011933/1
• 负责人: Amanda Maycock
• 金额: $ 10.27万
• 依托单位: University of Leeds
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FX011933%2F1
• 关键词: Did; 2022; strong; polar; vortex

Extratropical storms, or cyclones, are the most damaging natural hazard affecting western Europe. Serial clustering of cyclones occurs when several intense storms affect one specific region in a short period, which can lead to large societal impacts such as flooding, damage from strong winds and risk to life. In February 2022, the UK and Ireland were severely impacted by a succession of extratropical storms: Dudley, Eunice and Franklin. These storms caused record breaking wind gusts and sadly led to multiple deaths and injuries. Storm Eunice was described by weather forecasters as a 'once in a decade' storm. Identifying and quantifying the factors that caused this period of intense stormy weather is important for understanding future weather hazards. One potential contributor was the stratospheric polar vortex - a band of strong winds encircling the North pole around 25 km above Earth's surface - which was nearly the strongest on record in February 2022. The polar vortex has been shown to affect surface weather and climate, but it has not previously been connected to clustering of extratropical storms. The hypothesis that StratClust will test is that the unusually strong polar vortex created environmental conditions that favoured the development of multiple intense North Atlantic storms. To address this hypothesis, StratClust will analyse subseasonal forecasts from state-of-the-art numerical prediction systems and perform bespoke 'attribution' experiments to isolate and quantify the impact of the stratosphere on surface weather and separate it from other factors. The outcomes from StratClust will provide the first information about whether the exceptional polar vortex conditions in February 2022 contributed to the extreme weather in the UK and Ireland. StratClust will serve as a pilot study which, through collaboration with an international project as part of the World Climate Research Programme (SNAPSI), will engage other international modelling groups to perform similar attribution experiments, thereby generating a new community dataset of subseasonal forecasts for February 2022 and opportunities for further research.

热带风暴或旋风是影响西欧的最具破坏性的自然灾害。当几场强烈风暴在短时间内影响一个特定地区时，就会发生连续的飓风集群，这可能导致巨大的社会影响，如洪水、强风造成的破坏和生命风险。2022年2月，英国和爱尔兰受到一系列温带风暴的严重影响：达德利、尤尼斯和富兰克林。这些风暴造成创纪录的阵风，并可悲地导致多人死亡和受伤。尤尼斯风暴被天气预报员描述为“十年一遇”的风暴。确定和量化导致这段强烈暴风雨天气的因素对于了解未来的天气灾害非常重要。一个潜在的贡献者是平流层极地涡旋-一个环绕地球表面上方约25公里北极的强风带-这几乎是2022年2月有记录以来最强的。极地涡旋已被证明会影响地面天气和气候，但它以前没有被连接到集群的热带风暴。StratClust将测试的假设是，异常强烈的极地涡旋创造了有利于多个强烈北大西洋风暴发展的环境条件。为了解决这一假设，StratClust将分析最先进的数值预报系统的亚季节预报，并进行定制的“归因”实验，以隔离和量化平流层对地面天气的影响，并将其与其他因素分开。StratClust的结果将提供有关2022年2月异常极地涡旋条件是否导致英国和爱尔兰极端天气的第一批信息。StratClust将作为一项试点研究，通过与世界气候研究计划（SNAPSI）的一个国际项目合作，将邀请其他国际建模小组进行类似的归因实验，从而生成2022年2月亚季节预测的新社区数据集，并为进一步研究提供机会。