Abstract
The North Atlantic climate is strongly influenced by large-scale atmospheric circulation, including the storm track and jet stream, which shape regional precipitation, temperature, and wind patterns. Climate models project an intensification of the winter circulation through the 21st century, however, it remains unclear whether abrupt or non-monotonic changes might occur under ongoing warming. Here we show that under continued CO2 emissions beyond 2100, the intensification reverses, with both the storm track and jet stream returning toward their 20th-century states. We attribute this reversal to the logarithmic relationship between CO2 and temperature, which leads to a reduced meridional temperature gradient and weakened atmospheric circulation at high CO2 concentrations. This behavior also alters regional climate patterns, reversing storm track-induced warming and wetting at higher mid-latitudes and cooling and drying at lower mid-latitudes over eastern North America and the North Atlantic. Our findings suggest that mitigation policies should account for the pace of continued emissions as well as the potential reversals in climate impacts.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The data used in the manuscript are publicly available for CMIP6 (https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/projects/cmip6/), and the CESM data is available upon request.
References
Zappa, G., Shaffrey, L. C., Hodges, K. I., Sansom, P. G. & Stephenson, D. B. A multimodel assessment of future projections of North Atlantic and European extratropical cyclones in the CMIP5 climate models. J. Clim. 26, 5846–5862 (2013).
Lehmann, J. & Coumou, D. The influence of mid-latitude storm tracks on hot, cold, dry and wet extremes. Sci. Rep. 5, 17491 (2015).
Chang, E. K. M., Ma, C., Zheng, C. & Yau, A. M. W. Observed and projected decrease in Northern Hemisphere extratropical cyclone activity in summer and its impacts on maximum temperature. Geophys. Res. Lett. 43, 2200–2208 (2016).
Ionita, M., Nagavciuc, V., Kumar, R. & Rakovec, O. On the curious case of the recent decade, mid-spring precipitation deficit in Central Europe. npj Clim. Atmos. Sci. 3, 49 (2020).
Yau, A. M. W. & Chang, E. K. M. Finding storm track activity metrics that are highly correlated with weather impacts. Part I: frameworks for evaluation and accumulated track activity. J. Clim. 33, 10169–10186 (2020).
Knight, J. R., Folland, C. K. & Scaife, A. A. Climate impacts of the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. Geophys. Res. Lett. 33, L17706 (2006).
Chang, E. K. M., Guo, Y. & Xia, X. CMIP5 multimodel ensemble projection of storm track change under global warming. J. Geophys. Res. 117, D23118 (2012).
Woollings, T., Gregory, J. M., Pinto, J. G., Reyers, M. & Brayshaw, D. J. Response of the North Atlantic storm track to climate change shaped by ocean-atmosphere coupling. Nat. Geosci. 5, 313–317 (2012).
Harvey, B. J., Shaffrey, L. C. & Woollings, T. J. Equator-to-pole temperature differences and the extra-tropical storm track responses of the CMIP5 climate models. Clim. Dyn. 43, 1171–1182 (2014).
Lehmann, J., Coumou, D., Frieler, K., Eliseev, A. V. & Levermann, A. Future changes in extratropical storm tracks and baroclinicity under climate change. Env. Res. Lett. 9, 084002 (2014).
Harvey, B. J., Cook, P., Shaffrey, L. C. & Schiemann, R. The response of the Northern Hemisphere storm tracks and jet streams to climate change in the CMIP3, CMIP5, and CMIP6 climate models. J. Geophys. Res. 125, e32701 (2020).
Chemke, R., Zanna, L., Orbe, C., Sentman, L. T. & Polvani, L. M. The future intensification of the North Atlantic winter storm track: the key role of dynamic ocean coupling. J. Clim. 35, 2407–2421 (2022).
Liu, W., Fedorov, A. V., Xie, S. & Hu, S. Climate impacts of a weakened Atlantic Meridional overturning circulation in a warming climate. Sci. Adv. 6, eaaz4876 (2020).
Seager, R., Naik, N. & Vecchi, G. A. Thermodynamic and dynamic mechanisms for large-scale changes in the hydrological cycle in response to global warming. J. Clim. 23, 4651–4668 (2010).
Chang, E. K. M., Yau, A. M. W. & Zhang, R. Finding storm track activity metrics that are highly correlated with weather impacts. Part II: estimating precipitation change associated with projected storm track change over Europe. J. Clim. 35, 2423–2440 (2022).
Masson-Delmotte, V. et al. Climate Change 2021: the Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2391 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2021).
O’Gorman, P. A. & Schneider, T. Energy in midlatitude transient eddies in idealized simulations of changed climates. J. Clim. 21, 5797–5806 (2008).
Mitevski, I., Chemke, R., Orbe, C. & Polvani, L. M. Southern Hemisphere Winter storm tracks respond differently to low and high CO2 forcings. J. Clim. 37, 5355–5372 (2024).
Manzini, E., Karpechko, A. Y. & Kornblueh, L. Nonlinear response of the stratosphere and the North Atlantic-European climate to global warming. Geophys. Res. Lett. 45, 4255–4263 (2018).
Zhou, W., Leung, L. R. & Lu, J. Seasonally and regionally dependent shifts of the atmospheric Westerly Jets under global warming. J. Clim. 35, 5433–5447 (2022).
Breul, P., Ceppi, P., Simpson, I. R. & Woollings, T. Seasonal and regional jet stream changes and drivers. Nat. Rev. Earth Environ. 6, 824–842 (2025).
Yin, J. H. A consistent poleward shift of the storm tracks in simulations of 21st century climate. Geophys. Res. Lett. 32, L18701 (2005).
Wu, Y., Ting, M., Seager, R., Huang, H. & Cane, M. A. Changes in storm tracks and energy transports in a warmer climate simulated by the GFDL CM2.1 model. Clim. Dyn. 37, 53–72 (2011).
Chemke, R. & Coumou, D. Human influence on the recent weakening of storm tracks in boreal summer. npj Clim. Atmos. Sci. 7, 86 (2024).
Butler, A. H., Thompson, D. W. J. & Heikes, R. The steady-state atmospheric circulation response to climate change-like thermal forcings in a simple general circulation model. J. Clim. 23, 3474–3496 (2010).
Yuval, J. & Kaspi, Y. Eddy activity sensitivity to changes in the vertical structure of baroclinicity. J. Atmos. Sci. 73, 1709–1726 (2016).
Nie, Y., Zhang, Y., Chen, G. & Yang, X. Quantifying Eddy generation and dissipation in the jet response to upper- versus lower-level thermal forcing. J. Atmos. Sci. 79, 2703–2720 (2022).
Yuval, J. & Kaspi, Y. Eddy activity response to global warming-like temperature changes. J. Clim. 33, 1381–1404 (2020).
Pithan, F. & Mauritsen, T. Arctic amplification dominated by temperature feedbacks in contemporary climate models. Nat. Geosci. 7, 181–184 (2014).
Liang, Y. C., Polvani, L. M. & Mitevski, I. Arctic amplification, and its seasonal migration, over a wide range of abrupt CO2 forcing. npj Clim. Atmos. Sci. 5, 14 (2022).
Mitevski, I., Orbe, C., Chemke, R., Nazarenko, L. & Polvani, L. M. Non monotonic response of the climate system to abrupt CO2 forcing. Geophys. Res. Lett. 48, e90861 (2021).
Eyring, V. et al. Overview of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) experimental design and organization. Geosci. Model Dev. 9, 1937–1958 (2016).
Hurrell, J. W. et al. The Community Earth System Model: a framework for collaborative research. Bull. Am. Meteor. Soc. 94, 1339–1360 (2013).
O’Gorman, P. A. Understanding the varied response of the extratropical storm tracks to climate change. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 107, 19176–19180 (2010).
Coumou, D., Lehmann, J. & Beckmann, J. The weakening summer circulation in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes. Science 348, 324–327 (2015).
Chemke, R. The future poleward shift of Southern Hemisphere summer mid-latitude storm tracks stems from ocean coupling. Nat. Commun. 13, 1730 (2022).
Chemke, R., Ming, Y. & Yuval, J. The intensification of winter mid-latitude storm tracks in the Southern Hemisphere. Nat. Clim. Change 12, 553–557 (2022).
Chemke, R. Persistent austral winter storm track weakening beyond doubling of CO2 concentrations. Nat. Commun. 16, 1935 (2025).
Karbi, I. & Chemke, R. Emergence of winter large-scale transient atmospheric waves in the northern hemisphere. Geophys. Res. Lett. 52, e2024GL113410 (2025).
Karbi, I. & Chemke, R. Seasonally asymmetric projected changes in austral atmospheric waves. Geophys. Res. Lett. 52, e2025GL117 (2025).
Cox, P. M. et al. Sensitivity of tropical carbon to climate change constrained by carbon dioxide variability. Nature 494, 341–344 (2013).
Cox, P. M., Huntingford, C. & Williamson, M. S. Emergent constraint on equilibrium climate sensitivity from global temperature variability. Nature 553, 319–322 (2018).
Hall, A., Cox, P., Huntingford, C. & Klein, S. Progressing emergent constraints on future climate change. Nat. Clim. Change 9, 269–278 (2019).
Simpson, I. R. et al. Emergent constraints on the large-scale atmospheric circulation and regional hydroclimate: do they still work in CMIP6 and how much can they actually constrain the future? J. Clim. 34, 6355–6377 (2021).
Chemke, R. & Yuval, J. Human induced weakening of the Northern Hemisphere tropical circulation. Nature 617, 529–532 (2023).
Chemke, R. & Yuval, J. Atmospheric circulation to constrain subtropical precipitation projections. Nat. Clim. Change 15, 287–292 (2025).
Acknowledgements
R.C. is grateful for the support of the Willner Family Leadership Institute for the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program. I.M. was supported by a Harry Hess postdoctoral fellowship from Princeton Geosciences. This work is supported by the Israeli Science Foundation Grant 407/25.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
R.C. analyzed the data and, together with I.M., discussed and wrote the paper.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Chemke, R., Mitevski, I. Logarithmic CO2 warming reverses North Atlantic winter atmospheric circulation changes. npj Clim Atmos Sci (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-025-01314-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-025-01314-3
