How frequent are Antarctic sudden stratospheric warmings in present and
future climate?
Abstract
Southern Hemisphere (SH) Stratospheric Sudden Warmings (SSWs) result in
smaller Antarctic ozone holes and are linked to extreme midlatitude
weather on subseasonal to seasonal timescales. Therefore, it is of
interest how often such events occur and whether we should expect more
events in the future. Here, we use a pair of novel multi-millennial
simulations with a stratosphere-resolving coupled ocean-atmosphere
climate model to show that the frequency of SSWs, such as observed 2002
and 2019, is about one in 22 years for 1990 conditions. In addition, we
show that we should expect the frequency of SSWs - and that of more
moderate vortex weakening events - to strongly decrease by the end of
this century.