Cold spells induced by slow-moving and amplified large-scale ridge and trough

Babaei, Morteza; Graversen, Rune Grand; Stoll, Johannes Patrick; Petříček, Jakub

doi:10.5194/wcd-7-825-2026

Articles | Volume 7, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-7-825-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-7-825-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 7, issue 2

Research article

|

20 May 2026

Research article |

| 20 May 2026

Cold spells induced by slow-moving and amplified large-scale ridge and trough

Morteza Babaei, Rune Grand Graversen, Johannes Patrick Stoll, and Jakub Petříček

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-7-825-2026-supplement

Data sets

ERA5 hourly data on pressure levels from 1940 to present Copernicus Climate Change Service, Climate Data Store https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.bd0915c6

ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1940 to present Copernicus Climate Change Service, Climate Data Store https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.adbb2d47

Model code and software

Cold spells induced by slow and amplified atmospheric waves (codes) M. Babaei et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16761349

Short summary

Extreme weather events have historically caused major challenges for humanity. Yet, our understanding of the mechanisms that contribute to their formation remains unclear. Our study provides evidence that locally amplified and slow-moving Rossby waves are responsible for the formation of extreme cold spells. These findings are obtained based on two novel metrics assessing the amplitude and speed of ridges and troughs separately at all longitudes around latitude circles.