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On the decreases in North Atlantic significant wave heights from climate projections

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Abstract

Consistent projected decreases in significant wave heights (\({\mathrm{H}}_{\mathrm{S}}\)) over the North Atlantic sub-basin under climate change scenarios have been endorsed by recent scientific literature. Here, the underlying causes of these projected decreases are investigated, by statistically characterizing the relationship between atmospheric circulation patterns, and wind generated waves. We apply a non-hierarchical partitioning method to the historical reference ERA5 mean sea level pressure (\(\mathrm{MSLP}\)) over the North Atlantic, defining Weather Types (WTs) at annual and seasonal scales. The \({\mathrm{H}}_{\mathrm{S}}\) fields related to those WTs are then characterized. Projected changes in the WTs frequencies of occurrence and related \({\mathrm{H}}_{\mathrm{S}}\), towards the end of twenty-first century, are analyzed for the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios using a 10-member multi-model ensemble. Results show projected increases in the occurrence of WTs dominated by high-latitude storm tracks (above 50° N) and atmospheric blocking patterns, and projected decreases in the occurrence of WTs dominated by lower-latitude storm tracks and NAO− patterns, over the North Atlantic, consistent with generalized projected decreases in \({\mathrm{H}}_{\mathrm{S}}\).

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code availability

The codes generated for the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work has been done under the auspices of the JCOMM COWCLIP (Coordinated Ocean Wave Climate Project). Gil Lemos is supported by the EarthSystems Doctoral School, at University of Lisbon, supported by Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) project UIDB/50019/2020-Instituto Dom Luiz (IDL). Melisa Menendez acknowledges the financial support from the Ramon y Cajal Program (RYC-2014-6469) and project ECLISEA, part of ERA4CS/ERA-NET initiated by JPI Climate and cofounded by the European Union (Grant 690462).

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  1. Instituto Dom Luiz, Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal

    Gil Lemos, Alvaro Semedo & Pedro M. A. Miranda

  2. Environmental Hydraulics Institute “IH Cantabria”, Universidad de Cantabria, Santander, Spain

    Melisa Menendez

  3. Department of Coastal, Urban Risk and Resilience, IHE Delft, Westvest 7, 2611, Delft, The Netherlands

    Alvaro Semedo

  4. CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Hobart, TAS, Australia

    Mark Hemer

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Lemos, G., Menendez, M., Semedo, A. et al. On the decreases in North Atlantic significant wave heights from climate projections. Clim Dyn 57, 2301–2324 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-05807-8

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