ANALYSIS OF THE (N)AO INFLUENCE ON ALPINE TEMPERATURES USING A DENSE STATION DATASET AND A HIGH-RESOLUTION SIMULATION

• Main Authors: Kerstin Prömmel, Martin Widmann, Julie M. Jones
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: REMO; NAO; AO; Alpine winter temperature; ALP-IMP; Arctic; Remo; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.520.9447; http://www.cnrm.meteo.fr/icam2007/ICAM2007/extended/manuscript_78.pdf

Abstract: Both the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Arctic Oscillation (AO) have a strong influence on European climate due to the associated change in the intensity and location of the westerlies, especially in winter (DJF). The influence of the (N)AO on the climate of the European Alps has been analysed in earlier studies either based on a few single stations or on gridded data not higher resolved than 1 deg. To analyse finer structures in the temperature response to the (N)AO caused by the complex topography, a very dense homogenised station dataset (extended version of HISTALP) has been used in this study for the winters 1958/59 to 1998/99 in the Greater Alpine Region. Additionally, the temperature response has been analysed using a high-resolution (1/6 deg.) model simulation performed with the regional climate model REMO to receive more information about the temperature response pattern and to validate the model.