Past and future trends in large-scale atmospheric circulations over Europe: Assessment of the Jenkinson-Collison classification with reanalyses and CMIP6.

Circulation classifications are a simple tool given their ability to portray aspects of day-to-day weather. As we start facing a dynamical response in general circulation patterns due to anthropogenic global warming, circulation changes can enhance or mitigate regional and local behaviour of extreme weather events.

A weather type (WT) automatic classification, developed by Jenkinson-Collison (JC), is used to evaluate past and future changes in the seasonal frequencies of synoptic weather patterns over central and western Europe. A set of three reanalyses and four Global Climate Models (GCMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) are used, based on daily Sea Level Pressure (SLP) data.

Discrepancies are found in the model outputs as they fall short of capturing interannual variabilities when compared to the reanalyses. Cyclonic and westerly circulations tend to be overestimated, whereas anticyclonics are underestimated.

The projected frequencies, based on the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 5 (SSP5) experiment, suggest significant increasing trends for unclassified WT (characterized by weak pressure gradients) during their summer half-year persistency for the coming 21^st century. Winter trends indicate a surge in westerlies and a reduction in the events of cyclonic circulations and easterly flows. The results of this study support evidence of emergent changes in the occurrence of major synoptic configurations over Europe.