Present and future synoptic circulation patterns associated with cold and snowy spells over Italy

Abstract

Cold and snowy spells are compound extreme events with the potential to cause high socioeconomic impacts. Gaining insight into their dynamics in climate change scenarios could help anticipating the need for adaptation efforts. We focus on winter cold and snowy spells over Italy, reconstructing 32 major events in the past 60 years from documentary sources. Despite warmer winter temperatures, very recent cold spells have been associated with abundant and sometimes exceptional snowfall. Our goal is to analyse the dynamical weather patterns associated with these events and understand whether those patterns would be more or less recurrent in different emission scenarios using an intermediate-complexity model (the Planet Simulator, PlaSim). Our results, obtained by considering RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 end-of-century equivalent CO2 concentrations, suggest that the likelihood of synoptic configurations analogous to those leading to extreme cold spells would grow substantially under increased emissions.