Tornado intensity under future climate change

Despite the increasing number of studies that have used climate model projections to assess future changes in convective-storm environments, the basic question of how the intensity of tornadoes might be affected by anthropogenic climate change (ACC) remains unanswered. Herein we employ the event-level pseudo-global-warming (PGW) methodology to attempt to answer this question. Following the recommendation of Trapp and Hoogewind (2016, JCLIM), we use two contrasting events to address the hypothesis that tornado intensity will increase with ACC, especially during the cool season months of October-February. When simulated under PGW, both events are composed of relatively more intense and numerous convective elements. These elements are also associated with stronger updraft rotation, indicative of potentially stronger tornadoes. The relative change of the intensity and number of these tornado-breeding updrafts is several orders of magnitude greater with the cool-season event than with the warm-season event. This finding is examined further using an additional set of PGW simulations, conducted using idealized modeling at very-high-resolutions (< 100 m grid spacings). Analyses of tornado power provide further evidence of increased tornado intensity with ACC, especially in the context of the cool-season event.