Storm Boris (2024) in the current and future climate: a dynamics-centered contextualization, and some lessons learnt

Abstract

Abstract. The response of mean and extreme precipitation to anthropogenic global warming stems both from warming of the troposphere and dynamical changes in the large-scale circulation, especially upward motions. The interaction between these two components complicates future projections and makes the attribution of extreme precipitation events challenging, both using conditional (e.g., analog-based) and unconditional (e.g., extreme value theory-based) methods. In this study we reflect upon this problem and propose some possible solutions to tackle it starting from the case study of Storm Boris, that led to major floods over central Europe in mid-September 2024. The first step is the identification of key circulation features associated with the event, whose representation is deemed crucial to obtain realistic analogs: the presence of a slow-moving, upper-level potential vorticity (PV) cutoff, the peculiar track of the surface cyclone associated with Boris, and the presence of anomalously strong forcing for ascent. Circulation analogs of Boris are then identified in a large ensemble of present-day and future-climate simulations with the CESM1 model, to understand how “Boris-like” storms will change in an end-of-the-century high warming scenario. We find that the combined use of upper-level PV and of a surface cyclone identification algorithm substantially improves the quality of the analogs, both in terms of the large-scale flow pattern and the precipitation associated with the cyclone. Analogs of Boris restricted to the same season in a warmer climate feature on average less precipitation, due to an overall weakening of upper-level-driven ascent over Europe. However, analogs of Boris not restricted to the same season show a seasonality shift: they become less frequent at the end of the warm season and more frequent in the shoulder seasons – when the dynamical and thermal conditions of September in the present-day climate can be recovered again –, and exhibit an increase in mean precipitation in the warmer climate. The results obtained from the analog-based approach are then compared with an unconditional, statistics-based approach focusing only on the seasonal and yearly maxima of precipitation: the latter approach allows to recover the expected intensification of extreme precipitation in a warmer climate – at the price, however, of considering events that do not necessarily have the same dynamics as Storm Boris. The sensitivity of attribution outcomes with respect to implicit and explicit methodological choices is discussed in detail. The systematic comparison of different approaches, the two-step methodology to obtain more reliable analogs of heavy precipitation events, and the focus on process understanding are key ingredients of this study, with general implications for investigating the role of climate change for specific weather extremes.