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Recent enhanced high-summer North Atlantic Jet variability emerges from three-century context.

  • Trouet V Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, 1215 East Lowell Street, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA. trouet@email.arizona.edu.
  • Babst F Landscape Dynamics Unit, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, Birmensdorf, CH-8903, Switzerland.
  • Meko M Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, 1215 East Lowell Street, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA.
  • 2018-01-14
Published in:
  • Nature communications. - 2018
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
General Physics and Astronomy
General Chemistry
English A recent increase in mid-latitude extreme weather events has been linked to Northern Hemisphere polar jet stream anomalies. To put recent trends in a historical perspective, long-term records of jet stream variability are needed. Here we combine two tree-ring records from the British Isles and the northeastern Mediterranean to reconstruct variability in the latitudinal position of the high-summer North Atlantic Jet (NAJ) back to 1725 CE. We find that northward NAJ anomalies have resulted in heatwaves and droughts in northwestern Europe and southward anomalies have promoted wildfires in southeastern Europe. We further find an unprecedented increase in NAJ variance since the 1960s, which co-occurs with enhanced late twentieth century variance in the Central and North Pacific Basin. Our results suggest increased late twentieth century interannual meridional jet stream variability and support more sinuous jet stream patterns and quasi-resonant amplification as potential dynamic pathways for Arctic warming to influence mid-latitude weather.
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  • English
Open access status
gold
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https://sonar.ch/global/documents/278936
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