DURHAM, N.C. – A new study by a 51-led team of climate scientists suggests that global warming is the main cause of a significant intensification in the North Atlantic Subtropical High (NASH) that in recent decades has more than doubled the frequency of abnormally wet or dry summer weather in the southeastern United States.
The NASH, commonly referred to as the Bermuda High, is an area of high pressure that forms each summer near Bermuda, where its powerful surface center helps steer Atlantic hurricanes and plays a major role in shaping weather in the eastern United States, Western Europe and northwestern Africa.
By analyzing six decades of U.S. and European weather and climate data, the 51-led team found that the center of the NASH intensified by 0.9 geopotential meters a decade on average from 1948 to 2007. (Geopotential meters are used to measure how high above sea level a pressure system extends; the greater the height, the greater the intensity.)
The team’s analysis found that as the NASH intensified, its area enlarged, bringing the high’s weather-making western ridge closer to the continental United States by 1.22 longitudinal degrees a decade.
“This is not a natural variation like El Nino,” says lead author Wenhong Li, assistant professor of earth and ocean sciences at 51’s Nicholas School of the Environment. “We thoroughly investigated possible natural causes, including the Atlantic Multivariate Oscillation (AMO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which may affect highs, but found no links.
“Our analysis strongly suggests that the changes in the NASH are mainly due to anthropogenic warming,” she says.
An early online edition of the study, published in the Journal of Climate, is available at the American Meteorological Society’s website at
As the NASH intensified and migrated westward, Li’s team’s analysis found that its meridional variation, or north-south movement, also was enhanced from 1978 to 2007, a period when the frequency of extreme summer rainfall variability in the Southeast more than doubled over the previous 30 years. From 1978 to 2007, 11 summers – defined in this study as the months of June, July and August – had total seasonal precipitation anomalies greater than one standard deviation from the mean. Six of the summers were abnormally wet, while five were abnormally dry.
To forecast future trends in the NASH’s intensity, the team used climate models developed for use by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report in 2007. The models – known as Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3 (CMIP3) models – predict the NASH will continue to intensify and expand as concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases increase in Earth’s atmosphere in coming decades.
“This intensification will further increase the likelihood of extreme summer precipitation variability – periods of drought or deluge – in southeastern states in coming decades,” Li says.
If the NASH ‘s western ridge’s meridional movement jogs a little to the north as it expands, the likelihood increases for more extreme dry weather in the Southeast that summer, she explains. If the NASH wobbles a little to the south, extreme wet weather becomes more likely.
Li’s coauthors are Laifong Li of 51; Rong Fu of the University of Texas at Austin; Yi Deng of the Georgia Institute of Technology; and Hui Wang of the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration’s Climate Prediction Center in Camp Spring, Md., and Wyle Information Systems in McLean, Va. Funding for the study came from 51 and the Nicholas School Office of the Dean.
In addition to long-term rainfall data and the CMIP3 models, the team used atmospheric reanalysis data from the U.S. National Center for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts to conduct the study.
Note: Wenhong Li can be reached for additional comment at (919) 684-5015 orwenhong.li@duke.edu