Links between teleconnection patterns and mean temperature in Spain

• Published in: Theoretical and Applied Climatology
• Main Authors: Ríos Cornejo, David, Penas, Ángel, Álvarez-Esteban, R., del Río, Sara
• Other Authors: Universidad de León
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Springer 2015
• Subjects: Cornejo; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/124132; https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-014-1256-2

18 páginas, 2 tablas, 6 figuras. © 2014, Springer-Verlag Wien. This work describes the relationships between Spanish temperature and four teleconnection patterns with influence on the Iberian Peninsula on monthly, seasonal and annual time scales, using data from 144 meteorological stations. Partial correlation analyses were carried out using Spearman test, and spatial distribution maps of the correlation coefficients were produced with geostatistical interpolation techniques. We regionalize the study area based on homogeneous areas containing weather stations with a similar response of temperatures to the same patterns. The links between the temperature and the patterns are mainly positive; only the correlations with Western Mediterranean Oscillation (WeMO) in the north and west are negative, indicating that WeMO plays an opposed role in temperature behaviour in Spain. In general terms, the four modes exert considerable influence on temperature in February, May and September. The East Atlantic (EA) is the pattern with the strongest influence on temperature in Spain—mainly in the north—except in June. Generally, on the seasonal and annual scales, large significant areas were only observed for the EA. EA and WeMO best account for the mean temperature on the Mediterranean fringe and in northern Spain, while EA and North Atlantic Oscillation largely explain the temperature in the rest of Spain. We would first like to thank the University of León for funding the grant to David Ríos Cornejo. We are also grateful to AEMET (Agencia Estatal de Meteorología) for providing the climate data and to Joan Albert López-Bustins for kindly supplying the WeMO data. We acknowledge the contribution of Prudence Brooke-Turner (M.A. Cantab./University of Cambridge) for her help with revising the English text. We also thank anonymous reviewers for their useful comments. Peer Reviewed