NAO influence on extreme winter temperatures in Madrid (Spain)

International audience Extremely cold days (ECDs), with minimum temperatures lower than -4.6°C, have been analysed for Madrid. This threshold corresponds to the 5th percentile of the period 1963?1999. Adopting a case analysis approach, five synoptic patterns have been identified that produce these e...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Prieto, L., Garcia, R., Dìaz, J., Hernandez, E., del Teso, T.
Other Authors: Depto. Fisica de la Tierra II, Centro Universitario de Salud Publica
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2002
Subjects:
[SDU.OCEAN]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Ocean
Atmosphere
[SDU.STU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences
North Atlantic
North Atlantic oscillation
Online Access:https://hal.science/hal-00317468
https://hal.science/hal-00317468/document
https://hal.science/hal-00317468/file/angeo-20-2077-2002.pdf
Description
Summary:International audience Extremely cold days (ECDs), with minimum temperatures lower than -4.6°C, have been analysed for Madrid. This threshold corresponds to the 5th percentile of the period 1963?1999. Adopting a case analysis approach, five synoptic patterns have been identified that produce these extremely low temperatures. Three of them are associated with cold air flows over the Iberian Peninsula, and the other two with a lack of significant circulation over the region. A nonlinear association with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) has been identified using log-linear models. The NAO positive phase leads to an increase in the winter frequency of those synoptic patterns associated with stagnant air flow over Iberia, while those characterised by cold, northern flows do not appear to be similarly influenced.

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