Dominant transport pathways in an atmospheric blocking event

Abstract

Eastern Europe and Western Russia experienced a strong heat wave with devastating consequences in the summer of 2010. This was due to an atmospheric blocking episode that lasted during several weeks. Despite these types of events have been well-investigated over the years, a complete understanding and prediction is still missing. In this work, we present a characterization of this flow pattern based on the study of fluid transport as a Lagrangian flow network, so that the methodology of complex networks can be applied. In particular, the most probable paths (MPPs) linking nodes of this atmospheric network reveal the dominant pathways traced by atmospheric fluid particles.