Journal article
Collaborative impact of the NAO and atmospheric blocking on European heatwaves, with a focus on the hot summer of 2018
Muyuan Li, Yao Yao, Ian Simmonds, Dehai Luo, Linhao Zhong, Xiaodan Chen
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS | IOP PUBLISHING LTD | Published : 2020
Abstract
Two intense heatwaves of July and early August 2018 are found to be associated with a European blocking (EB) event accompanied by a series of consecutive positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO+) events. Further analyses show that the collaborative role of an EB event and its upstream NAO+ pattern could increase the frequency, persistence, magnitude and scale of heatwaves over Europe. Compared with NAO+-unrelated EB events, NAO+-related EB events are less movable (quasi-stationary) and more persistent over Europe, which could contribute to an increase in the intensity and persistence of heatwaves. In addition, the blocking high of this type has a northeast-southwest orientation with stronge..
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Awarded by National Natural Science Foundation of China
Awarded by National Key Research and Development Program of China
Awarded by Australian Research Council
Awarded by Chinese Academy of Sciences Strategic Priority Research Program
Funding Acknowledgements
We sincerely thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript. The first two authors acknowledge support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos 41975068 and 41790473) and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2016YFA0601802). Simmonds was supported by the Australian Research Council (Grant No. DP 160101997). Luo, Zhong and Chen were supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Strategic Priority Research Program (Grant No. XDA19070403). The authors also acknowledge the E-OBS dataset from the EU-FP6 project ENSEMBLES (http://ensembleseu.metoffice.com) and the data providers in the ECA&D project (www.ecad.eu).