Increased frequency of planetary wave resonance events over the past half-century
We demonstrate a tripling in the frequency of planetary wave resonance events over the past halfcentury, coinciding with the rise in persistent boreal summer weather extremes. This increase aligns with changes in the underlying climate conditions favoring these events, including amplified Arctic warming and land-sea thermal contrast. We also observe increased prevalence of resonant amplification events following the mature phase of strong El Niño events, suggesting that such events may precondition the mean state conditions in ways that favor large-scale quasi-stationary wave patterns and quasi-resonant wave amplification. Since the impact of anthropogenic warming on quasi-resonant amplification is not well captured by current-generation climate models, it is likely that models are underpredicting the potential increase, indicating even greater risk of persistent extreme summer weather events with ongoing warming.
Authors
- Michael Wehner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5991-0082)
- Shannon Christiansen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-6731-5977)
- Xueke Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6755-9229)
- Michael Mann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3067-296X)
Institutions
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US)
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2025-06-16
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2504482122
- Citations
- 8
- Primary Topic
- Climate variability and models
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 8.84
Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- University of Pennsylvania
- Office of Science
- School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania
- Biological and Environmental Research