Articles | Volume 30, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-30-1-2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-30-1-2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Weather pattern dynamics over western Europe under climate change: predictability, information entropy and production
Stéphane Vannitsem
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Meteorological and Climatological Information Service, Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium
Related authors
Martin Bonte and Stéphane Vannitsem
Nonlin. Processes Geophys., 32, 139–165, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-32-139-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-32-139-2025, 2025
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In recent years, there have been more and more floods due to intense precipitation, such as the July 2021 event in Belgium. Predicting precipitation is a difficult task, even just for the next few hours. This study focuses on a tool that assesses whether a given situation is stable or not (i.e., whether it is likely to stay as it is or could evolve in an unpredictable manner).
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Large-scale modes of variability are present in the climate system. These modes are known to have influences on each other but are usually viewed as linear influences. The nonlinear connections among a set of key climate indices are explored here using tools from information theory, which allow us to characterize the causality between indices. It was found that quadratic nonlinear dependencies between climate indices are present at low frequencies, reflecting the complex nature of their dynamics.
Elke Debrie, Jonathan Demaeyer, and Stéphane Vannitsem
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In this project, we developed a gridded hourly precipitation dataset for Belgium, covering over 70 years (1940–2016). The data has a spatial resolution of one kilometer, which means it provides highly localized precipitation information. To estimate precipitation for a specific day in the past, we searched for days in the recent radar data period with similar weather patterns, known as the analog method. The median of the produced dataset is available for public use and can be found on Zenodo.
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This research focuses on understanding different atmospheric patterns like blocking, zonal, and transition regimes and analyzing their predictability. We used an idealized land–atmosphere coupled model to simulate Earth's atmosphere. Then we identified these blocking, zonal, and transition regimes using Gaussian mixture clustering and studied their predictability using Lyapunov exponents.
David Docquier, Giorgia Di Capua, Reik V. Donner, Carlos A. L. Pires, Amélie Simon, and Stéphane Vannitsem
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Identifying causes of specific processes is crucial in order to better understand our climate system. Traditionally, correlation analyses have been used to identify cause–effect relationships in climate studies. However, correlation does not imply causation, which justifies the need to use causal methods. We compare two independent causal methods and show that these are superior to classical correlation analyses. We also find some interesting differences between the two methods.
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The exceptional flood of July 2021 in central Europe impacted Belgium severely. This study aims to characterize rainfall amounts in Belgium from 13 to 16 July 2021 based on observational data (i.e., rain gauge data and a radar-based rainfall product). The spatial and temporal distributions of rainfall during the event aredescribed. In order to document such a record-breaking event as much as possible, the rainfall data are shared with the scientific community on Zenodo for further studies.
Jonathan Demaeyer, Jonas Bhend, Sebastian Lerch, Cristina Primo, Bert Van Schaeybroeck, Aitor Atencia, Zied Ben Bouallègue, Jieyu Chen, Markus Dabernig, Gavin Evans, Jana Faganeli Pucer, Ben Hooper, Nina Horat, David Jobst, Janko Merše, Peter Mlakar, Annette Möller, Olivier Mestre, Maxime Taillardat, and Stéphane Vannitsem
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A benchmark dataset is proposed to compare different statistical postprocessing methods used in forecasting centers to properly calibrate ensemble weather forecasts. This dataset is based on ensemble forecasts covering a portion of central Europe and includes the corresponding observations. Examples on how to download and use the data are provided, a set of evaluation methods is proposed, and a first benchmark of several methods for the correction of 2 m temperature forecasts is performed.
David Docquier, Stéphane Vannitsem, and Alessio Bellucci
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 577–591, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-577-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-577-2023, 2023
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The climate system is strongly regulated by interactions between the ocean and atmosphere. However, many uncertainties remain in the understanding of these interactions. Our analysis uses a relatively novel approach to quantify causal links between the ocean surface and lower atmosphere based on satellite observations. We find that both the ocean and atmosphere influence each other but with varying intensity depending on the region, demonstrating the power of causal methods.
David Docquier, Stéphane Vannitsem, Alessio Bellucci, and Claude Frankignoul
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1340, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1340, 2022
Preprint withdrawn
Short summary
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Understanding whether variations in ocean heat content are driven by air-sea heat fluxes or by ocean dynamics is of crucial importance to enhance climate projections. We use a relatively novel causal method to quantify interactions between ocean heat budget terms based on climate models. We find that low-resolution models overestimate the influence of ocean dynamics in the upper ocean, and that changes in ocean heat content are dominated by air-sea fluxes at high resolution.
Nicolas Ghilain, Stéphane Vannitsem, Quentin Dalaiden, Hugues Goosse, Lesley De Cruz, and Wenguang Wei
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 1901–1916, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1901-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1901-2022, 2022
Short summary
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Modeling the climate at high resolution is crucial to represent the snowfall accumulation over the complex orography of the Antarctic coast. While ice cores provide a view constrained spatially but over centuries, climate models can give insight into its spatial distribution, either at high resolution over a short period or vice versa. We downscaled snowfall accumulation from climate model historical simulations (1850–present day) over Dronning Maud Land at 5.5 km using a statistical method.
Tommaso Alberti, Reik V. Donner, and Stéphane Vannitsem
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We provide a novel approach to diagnose the strength of the ocean–atmosphere coupling by using both a reduced order model and reanalysis data. Our findings suggest the ocean–atmosphere dynamics presents a rich variety of features, moving from a chaotic to a coherent coupled dynamics, mainly attributed to the atmosphere and only marginally to the ocean. Our observations suggest further investigations in characterizing the occurrence and spatial dependency of the ocean–atmosphere coupling.
Stephan Hemri, Sebastian Lerch, Maxime Taillardat, Stéphane Vannitsem, and Daniel S. Wilks
Nonlin. Processes Geophys., 27, 519–521, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-27-519-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-27-519-2020, 2020
Martin Bonte and Stéphane Vannitsem
Nonlin. Processes Geophys., 32, 139–165, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-32-139-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-32-139-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
In recent years, there have been more and more floods due to intense precipitation, such as the July 2021 event in Belgium. Predicting precipitation is a difficult task, even just for the next few hours. This study focuses on a tool that assesses whether a given situation is stable or not (i.e., whether it is likely to stay as it is or could evolve in an unpredictable manner).
Stéphane Vannitsem, X. San Liang, and Carlos A. Pires
Earth Syst. Dynam., 16, 703–719, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-16-703-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-16-703-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Large-scale modes of variability are present in the climate system. These modes are known to have influences on each other but are usually viewed as linear influences. The nonlinear connections among a set of key climate indices are explored here using tools from information theory, which allow us to characterize the causality between indices. It was found that quadratic nonlinear dependencies between climate indices are present at low frequencies, reflecting the complex nature of their dynamics.
Elke Debrie, Jonathan Demaeyer, and Stéphane Vannitsem
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-149, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-149, 2025
Revised manuscript accepted for ESSD
Short summary
Short summary
In this project, we developed a gridded hourly precipitation dataset for Belgium, covering over 70 years (1940–2016). The data has a spatial resolution of one kilometer, which means it provides highly localized precipitation information. To estimate precipitation for a specific day in the past, we searched for days in the recent radar data period with similar weather patterns, known as the analog method. The median of the produced dataset is available for public use and can be found on Zenodo.
Anupama K. Xavier, Jonathan Demaeyer, and Stéphane Vannitsem
Earth Syst. Dynam., 15, 893–912, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-893-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-893-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This research focuses on understanding different atmospheric patterns like blocking, zonal, and transition regimes and analyzing their predictability. We used an idealized land–atmosphere coupled model to simulate Earth's atmosphere. Then we identified these blocking, zonal, and transition regimes using Gaussian mixture clustering and studied their predictability using Lyapunov exponents.
David Docquier, Giorgia Di Capua, Reik V. Donner, Carlos A. L. Pires, Amélie Simon, and Stéphane Vannitsem
Nonlin. Processes Geophys., 31, 115–136, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-31-115-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-31-115-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Identifying causes of specific processes is crucial in order to better understand our climate system. Traditionally, correlation analyses have been used to identify cause–effect relationships in climate studies. However, correlation does not imply causation, which justifies the need to use causal methods. We compare two independent causal methods and show that these are superior to classical correlation analyses. We also find some interesting differences between the two methods.
Michel Journée, Edouard Goudenhoofdt, Stéphane Vannitsem, and Laurent Delobbe
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 27, 3169–3189, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-3169-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-3169-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
The exceptional flood of July 2021 in central Europe impacted Belgium severely. This study aims to characterize rainfall amounts in Belgium from 13 to 16 July 2021 based on observational data (i.e., rain gauge data and a radar-based rainfall product). The spatial and temporal distributions of rainfall during the event aredescribed. In order to document such a record-breaking event as much as possible, the rainfall data are shared with the scientific community on Zenodo for further studies.
Jonathan Demaeyer, Jonas Bhend, Sebastian Lerch, Cristina Primo, Bert Van Schaeybroeck, Aitor Atencia, Zied Ben Bouallègue, Jieyu Chen, Markus Dabernig, Gavin Evans, Jana Faganeli Pucer, Ben Hooper, Nina Horat, David Jobst, Janko Merše, Peter Mlakar, Annette Möller, Olivier Mestre, Maxime Taillardat, and Stéphane Vannitsem
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 2635–2653, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-2635-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-2635-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
A benchmark dataset is proposed to compare different statistical postprocessing methods used in forecasting centers to properly calibrate ensemble weather forecasts. This dataset is based on ensemble forecasts covering a portion of central Europe and includes the corresponding observations. Examples on how to download and use the data are provided, a set of evaluation methods is proposed, and a first benchmark of several methods for the correction of 2 m temperature forecasts is performed.
David Docquier, Stéphane Vannitsem, and Alessio Bellucci
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 577–591, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-577-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-577-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
The climate system is strongly regulated by interactions between the ocean and atmosphere. However, many uncertainties remain in the understanding of these interactions. Our analysis uses a relatively novel approach to quantify causal links between the ocean surface and lower atmosphere based on satellite observations. We find that both the ocean and atmosphere influence each other but with varying intensity depending on the region, demonstrating the power of causal methods.
David Docquier, Stéphane Vannitsem, Alessio Bellucci, and Claude Frankignoul
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1340, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1340, 2022
Preprint withdrawn
Short summary
Short summary
Understanding whether variations in ocean heat content are driven by air-sea heat fluxes or by ocean dynamics is of crucial importance to enhance climate projections. We use a relatively novel causal method to quantify interactions between ocean heat budget terms based on climate models. We find that low-resolution models overestimate the influence of ocean dynamics in the upper ocean, and that changes in ocean heat content are dominated by air-sea fluxes at high resolution.
Nicolas Ghilain, Stéphane Vannitsem, Quentin Dalaiden, Hugues Goosse, Lesley De Cruz, and Wenguang Wei
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 1901–1916, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1901-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1901-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Modeling the climate at high resolution is crucial to represent the snowfall accumulation over the complex orography of the Antarctic coast. While ice cores provide a view constrained spatially but over centuries, climate models can give insight into its spatial distribution, either at high resolution over a short period or vice versa. We downscaled snowfall accumulation from climate model historical simulations (1850–present day) over Dronning Maud Land at 5.5 km using a statistical method.
Tommaso Alberti, Reik V. Donner, and Stéphane Vannitsem
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 837–855, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-837-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-837-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
We provide a novel approach to diagnose the strength of the ocean–atmosphere coupling by using both a reduced order model and reanalysis data. Our findings suggest the ocean–atmosphere dynamics presents a rich variety of features, moving from a chaotic to a coherent coupled dynamics, mainly attributed to the atmosphere and only marginally to the ocean. Our observations suggest further investigations in characterizing the occurrence and spatial dependency of the ocean–atmosphere coupling.
Stephan Hemri, Sebastian Lerch, Maxime Taillardat, Stéphane Vannitsem, and Daniel S. Wilks
Nonlin. Processes Geophys., 27, 519–521, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-27-519-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-27-519-2020, 2020
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Short summary
The impact of climate change on weather pattern dynamics over the North Atlantic is explored through the lens of information theory. These tools allow the predictability of the succession of weather patterns and the irreversible nature of the dynamics to be clarified. It is shown that the predictability is increasing in the observations, while the opposite trend is found in model projections. The irreversibility displays an overall increase in time in both the observations and the model runs.
The impact of climate change on weather pattern dynamics over the North Atlantic is explored...