A series of trends emerge from a new study. Source: doi:10.1038/s41612-024-00721-2
Tropical cyclones (TCs) hitting Western Europe are not as rare as you might think. Over the past 40 years, about 10% of Atlantic TCs have made landfall in Europe, with landfall occurring in Europe approximately once a year. Understanding and predicting changes in TC frequency is particularly challenging in certain coastal regions, such as Western Europe, which experience low TC activity but are highly exposed and have a relatively short period of reliable observational records.
Using a large-ensemble experiment with GFDL's SPEAR model system, the authors show that the increase in TC frequency observed near Western Europe from 1966 to 2020 is likely related to the influence of anthropogenic aerosols. In a future scenario with regionally controlled aerosol emissions and large increases in greenhouse gas concentrations (Shared Socio-Economic Pathway 5-85), SPEAR simulations show that TC frequency near Western Europe may decrease by the end of the 21st century.
These contrasting changes between the past and future highlight the different influences of aerosols and greenhouse gases on typhoon frequency near Europe. The different results for past and future typhoon frequency are mainly due to a possible increase in typhoon frequency in the North Atlantic from 1966 to 2020, followed by a decrease from 2030 to 2100. We find that how large-scale environmental conditions respond to anthropogenic forcing is crucial in explaining the past and future changes in typhoon frequency near Western Europe.
