Centennial-Scale Recovery of the North Atlantic Summer Storm Track Weakening

The North Atlantic storm track plays a critical role in setting the regional weather and climate over Western Europe. In response to anthropogenic emissions, the summer North Atlantic storm track has weakened in recent decades and is projected to continue weakening by the end of this century. In light of growing efforts to mitigate climate change, it is crucial to assess how reversible the CO2-induced storm track weakening is. Here, I show that under CO2 removal scenarios, the recovery timescale of the storm track is more than double its weakening period. It is found that due to a prolonged high-latitude warming, postponing the execution of mitigation policies beyond doubling of CO2 concentrations would lead to a centennial-scale recovery of the storms. Given the impacts of weakening summer storms on weather and extreme events, the delayed recovery of the storms might have broader regional consequences for Western Europe.