Major role of marine heatwave and anthropogenic climate change on a giant hail event in Spain

A severe hailstorm that occurred in Spain on 30 August 2022, caused material and human damage, including one fatality due to giant hailstones up to 12 cm in diameter. By applying a pseudo‐global warming approach, here we evaluate how a simultaneous marine heatwave (and anthropogenic climate change)...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Martín, M.L., Calvo-Sancho, Carlos, Taszarek, M., González Alemán, Juan Jesús, Montoro-Mendoza, Ana, Díaz Fernández, Javier, Bolgiani, Pedro Mariano, Sastre Marugán, Mariano, Martín, Yago
Format: article
Publication Date:2024
Country:España
Institution:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repository:Docta Complutense
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/102920
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/102920
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:551.5
551.51
Giant hail
Supercell
Pseudo global warming
Marine heatwave
Southern Europe
Física atmosférica
Meteorología (Física)
2501 Ciencias de la Atmósfera
2502 Climatología
Description
Summary:A severe hailstorm that occurred in Spain on 30 August 2022, caused material and human damage, including one fatality due to giant hailstones up to 12 cm in diameter. By applying a pseudo‐global warming approach, here we evaluate how a simultaneous marine heatwave (and anthropogenic climate change) affected a unique environment conductive to such giant hailstones. The main results show that the supercell development was influenced by an unprecedented amount of convective available energy, with significant contributions from thermodynamic factors. Numerical simulations where the marine heatwave is not present show a notable reduction in the hail‐favorable environments, related mainly to modifications in thermodynamic environment. Our simulations also indicate that the environment in a preindustrial‐like climate would be less favorable for convective hazards and thus the hailstorm event would likely not have been as severe as the observed one, being possible to perform a novel attribution of such kind.