On the atmospheric conditions leading to mountain lee waves in central Iberia under CMIP6 projections

Mountain lee waves present significant hazards to aviation, often inducing turbulence and aircraft icing. The current study focuses on understanding the potential impact of global climate change on the precursor environments to mountain lee wave cloud episodes over central Iberia. We examine the sui...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Díaz Fernández, Javier, Calvo-Sancho, Carlos, Bolgiani, Pedro Mariano, González Alemán, Juan Jesús, Farrán, José Ignacio, Sastre Marugán, Mariano, Martín, M.L.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2024
País:España
Institución:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/101725
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/101725
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:551.5
Mountain lee waves
CMIP6
Global climate models
SSP5–8.5
Meteorología (Física)
2509 Meteorología
Descripción
Sumario:Mountain lee waves present significant hazards to aviation, often inducing turbulence and aircraft icing. The current study focuses on understanding the potential impact of global climate change on the precursor environments to mountain lee wave cloud episodes over central Iberia. We examine the suitability of several Global Climate Models (GCMs) from CMIP6 in predicting these environments using the ERA5 reanalysis as a benchmark for performance. The dataset is divided into two periods: historical data (2001–2014) and projections for the SSP5–8.5 future climate scenario (2015–2100). The variations and trends in precursor environments between historical data and future climate scenarios are exposed, with a particular focus on the expansion of the Azores High towards the Iberian Peninsula, resulting in increased zonal winds throughout the Iberian Peninsula in the future. However, the increase in zonal wind is insufficient to modify the wind pattern, so future mountain lee wave cloud events will not vary significantly. The relative humidity trends reveal no significant changes. Moreover, the risk of icing precursor environments connected with mountain lee wave clouds is expected to decrease in the future, due to rising temperatures. Our results highlight that the EC-EARTH3 GCM reveals the closest alignment with ERA5 data, and statistically significant differences between the historical and future climate scenario periods are presented, making ECEARTH3 a robust candidate for conducting future studies on the precursor environments to mountain lee wave cloud events.