About Eurekalert: Scientists quantitatively identify the main causes of the once-in-a-century heat wave in Russia
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) finds that global surface temperatures have increased significantly since the pre-industrial era. This warming has led to more frequent and intense extreme heat events on most continents. In the summer of 2010, western Russia was hit by a record-breaking heat wave. The region experienced its warmest summer since at least 1880, with numerous cities seeing record temperatures. Furthermore, in the context of global warming, future mid-latitude heatwaves will become even more extreme, analogous to the 2010 event, with heatwave intensity increasing by approximately 8.4°C in western Russia. Therefore, elucidating the physical processes that played a role in the 2010 heat wave in western Russia is a concern of the scientific community.
Previous studies have shown that this extraordinary event in 2010 is mainly due to internal natural variability, which includes, among others, the processes associated with the El Niño to La Niña transition, the enhanced Arctic dipole mode, enhanced moisture-temperature coupling strength, land warming at high latitudes, and increased aerosol concentrations. However, there is still some debate about what role dynamic and radiative processes played in the 2010 western Russian heat wave.
A new study published in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters by a research team led by Professor Song Yang of Sun Yat-sen University in China shows that surface dynamics and aerosol processes were the main causes of the extraordinary 2010 heat wave. This study offers a new quantitative perspective on the record-breaking heat wave in western Russia.
“To date, attribution studies have relied primarily on sensitivity experiments conducted with climate models, which often resulted in large uncertainties in the quantitative results due to significant model biases. The coupled atmosphere-surface climate feedback response analysis with aerosol impacts (CFRAM-A) method is an efficient, model-free approach for quantitative attributions of extreme temperature events. We have applied this method to estimate surface warming in Western Russia in 2010 into contributions from individual radiation and dynamic processes,” says the first author, Dr. Lianlian Xu.
“Understanding the physical and dynamic origins of regional climate extremes remains a major challenge in our efforts to anticipate the occurrence of these extremes and mitigate the negative impacts of these extremes,” adds corresponding author, Prof. Song Yang.
According to this study, surface warming over western Russia in 2010 can be attributed mainly to the effects of surface dynamics (95%), followed by atmospheric dynamics (49%), clouds (19%) and water vapor (6%), which are partially offset by aerosol-induced cooling (−64%). Further analysis revealed that the total aerosol cooling was predominantly determined by organic carbon (78%), soot (36%) and sulfate (−21%).
This research provides a new perspective for understanding the mechanisms of heat waves worldwide and is crucial for improving the ability to predict such extreme events. The framework presented in this article not only advances understanding of the mechanisms of extreme weather events, but also highlights the complex interplay between dynamic and radiative factors in the generation of record-breaking heat waves.
Journal: Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters DOI 10.1016/j.aosl.2025.100724
Article title: Quantitative mapping analysis of dynamic and radiation processes to the record-breaking heat wave in western Russia
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