Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Article
  • Published:

Counterbalancing influences of aerosols and greenhouse gases on atmospheric rivers

Nature Climate Change volume 11, pages 958–965 (2021)Cite this article

Subjects

An Author Correction to this article was published on 12 November 2021

This article has been updated

Abstract

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are filamentary conduits of intense water vapour transport in the extratropics, accounting for the majority of poleward moisture transport in the mid-latitudes and acting as a key precipitation source for coastal regions. How ARs have responded to climate change nevertheless remains uncertain. Here we use a series of coupled model experiments to show that there was little to no change in mean AR characteristics in 1920–2005 due to opposite but equal influences from industrial aerosols, which weaken ARs, and greenhouse gases (GHGs), which strengthen them. Despite little historical change, the simulations project steep intensification of ARs in the coming decades, including mean AR-driven precipitation increases of up to ~20 mm per month, as the influence of GHGs greatly outpaces that of industrial aerosols. We also investigate the extent to which future AR changes are dynamically and thermodynamically driven, highlighting the need to conceptualize AR change beyond the scaling of humidity with warming.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Historical and future influences.
Fig. 2: Single forcing influences.
Fig. 3: Multi-model comparison of aerosol and GHG influences.
Fig. 4: Future influences of aerosols and GHGs.
Fig. 5: Thermodynamic and dynamical influences of aerosols.
Fig. 6: Thermodynamic and dynamical influences of GHGs.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

All NCAR CESM1 Large Ensemble model data are publicly available through the Casper cluster at /glade/campaign/cesm/collections/cesmLE/CESM-CAM5-BGC-LE/. The three-hourly IVT and IWV variables calculated from MERRA-2 can be found through the NCAR Climate Data Gateway at https://www.earthsystemgrid.org/dataset/ucar.cgd.ccsm4.merra.artmip.011980-062017.atm.proc.3hourly_inst.html. The Lora_v2 catalogue to identify ARs within MERRA-2 can also be found through the Climate Data Gateway at https://www.earthsystemgrid.org/dataset/ucar.cgd.ccsm4.artmip.tier1.html. The DAMIP experiments are part of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 and are available at https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip6.

Code availability

All code necessary for performing the reported analyses is available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author.

Change history

References

  1. Zhu, Y. & Newell, R. E. A proposed algorithm for moisture fluxes from atmospheric rivers. Mon. Weather Rev. 126, 725–735 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Ralph, F. M. & Dettinger, M. D. Storms, floods, and the science of atmospheric rivers. Eos 92, 265–266 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Ralph, F. M., Dettinger, M. D., Cairns, M. M., Galarneau, T. J. & Eylander, J. Defining ‘atmospheric river’: how the glossary of meteorology helped resolve a debate. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 99, 837–839 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Sodemann, H. & Stohl, A. Moisture origin and meridional transport in atmospheric rivers and their association with multiple cyclones. Mon. Weather Rev. 141, 2850–2868 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Zhang, Z., Ralph, F. M. & Zheng, M. The relationship between extratropical cyclone strength and atmospheric river intensity and position. Geophys. Res. Lett. 46, 1814–1823 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Newman, M., Kiladis, G. N., Weickmann, K. M., Ralph, F. M. & Sardeshmukh, P. D. Relative contributions of synoptic and low-frequency eddies to time-mean atmospheric moisture transport, including the role of atmospheric rivers. J. Clim. 25, 7341–7361 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Ralph, F. M. et al. Dropsonde observations of total integrated water vapor transport within North Pacific atmospheric rivers. J. Hydrometeorol. 18, 2577–2596 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Shields, C. A. et al. Meridional heat transport during atmospheric rivers in high‐resolution CESM climate projections. Geophys. Res. Lett. 46, 14702–14712 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Payne, A. E. et al. Responses and impacts of atmospheric rivers to climate change. Nat. Rev. Earth Environ. 1, 143–157 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Neiman, P. J., Ralph, F. M., Wick, G. A., Lundquist, J. D. & Dettinger, M. D. Meteorological characteristics and overland precipitation impacts of atmospheric rivers affecting the west coast of North America based on eight years of SSM/I satellite observations. J. Hydrometeorol. 9, 22–47 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Dettinger, M. D., Ralph, F. M., Das, T., Neiman, P. J. & Cayan, D. R. Atmospheric rivers, floods and the water resources of California. Water 3, 445–478 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Ralph, F. M. & Dettinger, M. D. Historical and national perspectives on extreme west coast precipitation associated with atmospheric rivers during December 2010. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 93, 783–790 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Warner, M. D., Mass, C. F. & Salathe, E. P. Changes in winter atmospheric rivers along the North American west coast in CMIP5 climate models. J. Hydrometeorol. 16, 118–128 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Hagos, S. M., Leung, L. R., Yoon, J.-H., Lu, J. & Gao, Y. A projection of changes in landfalling atmospheric river frequency and extreme precipitation over western North America from the large ensemble CESM simulations. Geophys. Res. Lett. 43, 1357–1363 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Lora, J. M., Mitchell, J. L., Risi, C. & Tripati, A. E. North Pacific atmospheric rivers and their influence on western North America at the last glacial maximum. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 1051–1059 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Viale, M., Valenzuela, R., Garreaud, R. D. & Ralph, F. M. Impacts of atmospheric rivers on precipitation in southern South America. J. Hydrometeorol. 19, 1671–1687 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Garreaud, R. Warm winter storms in central Chile. J. Hydrometeorol. 14, 1515–1534 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Blamey, R. C., Ramos, A. M., Trigo, R. M., Tomé, R. & Reason, C. J. C. The influence of atmospheric rivers over the South Atlantic on winter rainfall in South Africa. J. Hydrometeorol. 19, 127–142 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Lavers, D. A. et al. Winter floods in Britain are connected to atmospheric rivers. Geophys. Res. Lett. 38, L23803 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Lavers, D. A., Villarini, G., Allan, R. P., Wood, E. F. & Wade, A. J. The detection of atmospheric rivers in atmospheric reanalyses and their links to British winter floods and the large‐scale climatic circulation. J. Geophys. Res. 117, D20106 (2012).

    Google Scholar 

  21. Lavers, D. A. & Villarini, G. The nexus between atmospheric rivers and extreme precipitation across Europe. Geophys. Res. Lett. 40, 3259–3264 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Lavers, D. A. & Villarini, G. The contribution of atmospheric rivers to precipitation in Europe and the United States. J. Hydrol. 522, 382–390 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Waliser, D. & Guan, B. Extreme winds and precipitation during landfall of atmospheric rivers. Nat. Geosci. 10, 179–183 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Gao, Y. et al. Dynamical and thermodynamical modulations on future changes of landfalling atmospheric rivers over western North America. Geophys. Res. Lett. 42, 7179–7186 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Gao, Y., Lu, J. & Leung, L. R. Uncertainties in projecting future changes in atmospheric rivers and their impacts on heavy precipitation over Europe. J. Clim. 29, 6711–6726 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Payne, A. E. & Magnusdottir, G. An evaluation of atmospheric rivers over the North Pacific in CMIP5 and their response to warming under RCP 8.5. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 120, 11173–11190 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Held, I. M. & Soden, B. J. Robust responses of the hydrological cycle to global warming. J. Clim. 19, 5686–5699 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Lavers, D. A. et al. Future changes in atmospheric rivers and their implications for winter flooding in Britain. Environ. Res. Lett. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034010 (2013).

  29. Espinoza, V., Waliser, D. E., Guan, B., Lavers, D. A. & Ralph, F. M. Global analysis of climate change projection effects on atmospheric rivers. Geophys. Res. Lett. 45, 4299–4308 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Barnes, E. A. & Screen, J. A. The impact of Arctic warming on the midlatitude jet‐stream: Can it? Has it? Will it? WIREs Clim. Change 6, 277–286 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Zavadoff, B. L. & Kirtman, B. P. Dynamic and thermodynamic modulators of European atmospheric rivers. J. Clim. 33, 4167–4185 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Yin, J. H. A consistent poleward shift of the storm tracks in simulations of 21st century climate. Geophys. Res. Lett. 32, L18701 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Barnes, E. A. & Polvani, L. Response of the midlatitude jets, and of their variability, to increased greenhouse gases in the CMIP5 models. J. Clim. 26, 7117–7135 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Deser, C. et al. Isolating the evolving contributions of anthropogenic aerosols and greenhouse gases: a new CESM1 large ensemble community resource. J. Clim. 33, 7835–7858 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Myhre, G. et al. in Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (eds Stocker, T. F. et al.) Ch. 8 (IPCC, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013).

  36. Bellouin, N. et al. Bounding global aerosol radiative forcing of climate change. Rev. Geophys. 58, e2019RG000660 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  37. Persad, G. G. & Caldeira, K. Divergent global-scale temperature effects from identical aerosols emitted in different regions. Nat. Commun. 9, 3289 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Samset, B. H. et al. Emerging Asian aerosol patterns. Nat. Geosci. 12, 582–584 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  39. Zhao, A., Stevenson, D. S. & Bollasina, M. A. Climate forcing and response to greenhouse gases, aerosols and ozone in CESM1. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 124, 13876–13894 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  40. Ramos, A. M., Tomé, R., Trigo, R. M., Liberato, M. L. R. & Pinto, J. G. Projected changes in atmospheric rivers affecting Europe in CMIP5 models. Geophys. Res. Lett. 43, 9315–9323 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Meinshausen, M. et al. The RCP greenhouse gas concentrations and their extensions from 1765 to 2300. Climatic Change 109, 213 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  42. Lamarque, J. F. et al. Global and regional evolution of short-lived radiatively-active gases and aerosols in the representative concentration pathways. Climatic Change 109, 191 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  43. Kay, J. E. et al. The Community Earth System Model (CESM) large ensemble project: a community resource for studying climate change in the presence of internal climate variability. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 96, 1333–1349 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Skinner, C. B., Lora, J. M., Payne, A. E. & Poulsen, C. J. Atmospheric river changes shaped mid-latitude hydroclimate since the mid-Holocene. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 541, 116293 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  45. Shields, C. A. et al. Atmospheric River Tracking Method Intercomparison Project (ARTMIP): project goals and experimental design. Geosci. Model Dev. 11, 2455–2474 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Rutz, J. J. et al. The Atmospheric River Tracking Method Intercomparison Project (ARTMIP): quantifying uncertainties in atmospheric river climatology. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 2019, 13777–13802 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Lora, J. M., Shields, C. A. & Rutz, J. J. Consensus and disagreement in atmospheric river detection: ARTMIP global catalogues. Geophys. Res. Lett. 47, e2020GL089302 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Ralph, F. M. et al. ARTMIP—early start comparison of atmospheric river detection tools: how many atmospheric rivers hit northern California’s Russian River watershed? Clim. Dyn. 52, 4973–4994 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Eyring, V. et al. Overview of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) experimental design and organization. Geosci. Model Dev. 9, 1937–1958 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Gillett, N. P. et al. The Detection and Attribution Model Intercomparison Project (DAMIP v1.0) contribution to CMIP6. Geosci. Model Dev. 9, 3685–3697 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Gelaro, R. et al. The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2). J. Clim. 30, 5419–5454 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Yale University. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Seung H. Baek & Juan M. Lora

Authors
  1. Seung H. Baek
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Juan M. Lora
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

S.H.B. conceived the study. S.H.B. and J.M.L. designed the study. S.H.B. performed the analyses, with contributions from J.M.L. in interpreting the results. S.H.B. wrote the paper, with contributions from J.M.L.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Seung H. Baek.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Climate Change thanks Breanna Zavadoff and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Comparison of model and reanalysis ARs.

(top) AR IVT identified on MERRAv2 and (middle) CESM1 ALL ensemble, both over 1980-2005. (bottom) Differences in AR IVT between MERRAv2 and CESM1 over 1980-2005.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Climatological ARs.

(left) Climatological AR-driven precipitation and IVT and (right) percent of total precipitation accounted by AR-driven precipitation (top) due to internal variability exclusive of historical forcings, (middle) over 1920-2005 with historical forcings, and (bottom) over 2006-2080 under the RCP8.5 scenario.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Temperature influences of AER and GHG.

Influences of greenhouse gases (orange) and industrial aerosols (blue), respectively, on mean surface air temperature over the mid-latitude (20°-70°) oceans from 1920–2005.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Humidity and wind influence of AER.

Changes in (left) specific humidity and (right) zonal winds induced by industrial aerosols for 1920–2005 for (top) the 500 hPa and (bottom) 850 hPa levels. IVT changes for each level are shown as contours. Note that different contour intervals are used for the 500 hPa and 850 hPa panels.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Humidity and wind influence of GHG.

Same as Extended Data Fig. 4, but for greenhouse gases.

Extended Data Fig. 6 Vertical wind influence of AER.

The influence of industrial aerosols (AER) on vertical winds at 527.4 hPa over 2006-2080. Contours show AER-induced change in specific humidity (g/kg) at 850 hPa.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Baek, S.H., Lora, J.M. Counterbalancing influences of aerosols and greenhouse gases on atmospheric rivers. Nat. Clim. Chang. 11, 958–965 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01166-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01166-8

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing