How frequent are Antarctic sudden stratospheric warmings in present and future climate?

Abstract

Southern Hemisphere (SH) Stratospheric Sudden Warmings (SSWs) result in smaller Antarctic ozone holes and are linked to extreme midlatitude weather on subseasonal to seasonal timescales. Therefore, it is of interest how often such events occur and whether we should expect more events in the future. Here, we use a pair of novel multi-millennial simulations with a stratosphere-resolving coupled ocean-atmosphere climate model to show that the frequency of SSWs, such as observed 2002 and 2019, is about one in 22 years for 1990 conditions. In addition, we show that we should expect the frequency of SSWs - and that of more moderate vortex weakening events - to strongly decrease by the end of this century.