The Extremely Warm Early Winter 2000 in Europe: What is the Forcing
High variability characterizes the winter climate of central Europe: interannual fluctuations in the surface-air temperature as large as 18 C over large areas are fairly common. The extraordinary early-winter 2000 in Europe appears to be a departure to an unprecedented extreme of the existing climat...
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
---|---|
Language: | unknown |
Published: |
2001
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20010026412 |
id |
ftnasantrs:oai:casi.ntrs.nasa.gov:20010026412 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftnasantrs:oai:casi.ntrs.nasa.gov:20010026412 2023-05-15T17:31:09+02:00 The Extremely Warm Early Winter 2000 in Europe: What is the Forcing Ardizzone, J. Angell, J. K. Terry, J. Jusem, J. C. Koslowsky, D. Otterman, J. Atlas, R. Demaree, G. Einaudi, Franco Unclassified, Unlimited, Publicly available Feb. 01, 2001 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20010026412 unknown Document ID: 20010026412 http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20010026412 No Copyright CASI Meteorology and Climatology 2001 ftnasantrs 2015-03-15T02:33:50Z High variability characterizes the winter climate of central Europe: interannual fluctuations in the surface-air temperature as large as 18 C over large areas are fairly common. The extraordinary early-winter 2000 in Europe appears to be a departure to an unprecedented extreme of the existing climate patterns. Such anomalous events affect agriculture, forestry, fuel consumption, etc., and thus deserve in-depth analysis. Our analysis indicates that the high anomalies of the surface-air temperature are predominantly due to the southwesterly flow from the eastern North Atlantic, with a weak contribution by southerly flow from the western Mediterranean. Backward trajectories based on the SSM/I and NCEP Reanalysis datasets traced from west-central Europe indicate that the warm air masses flowing into Europe originate in the southern North Atlantic, where the surface-air temperatures exceed by 15c or more the climatic norms in Europe for late-November or early-December. Because such large ocean-to-continent temperature differences characterize the winter conditions, we refer to this episode which started in late November as occurring in the early winter. In this season, with the sun low over the horizon in Europe, absorption of insolation by the surface has little significance. The effect of cloudiness, a corollary to the low-level maritime-air advection, is a warming by a reduction of heat loss (greenhouse effect). In contrast, in the summer, clouds, by reducing absorption of insolation, produce a cooling, effect at the surface. Other/Unknown Material North Atlantic NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) |
op_collection_id |
ftnasantrs |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Meteorology and Climatology |
spellingShingle |
Meteorology and Climatology Ardizzone, J. Angell, J. K. Terry, J. Jusem, J. C. Koslowsky, D. Otterman, J. Atlas, R. Demaree, G. Einaudi, Franco The Extremely Warm Early Winter 2000 in Europe: What is the Forcing |
topic_facet |
Meteorology and Climatology |
description |
High variability characterizes the winter climate of central Europe: interannual fluctuations in the surface-air temperature as large as 18 C over large areas are fairly common. The extraordinary early-winter 2000 in Europe appears to be a departure to an unprecedented extreme of the existing climate patterns. Such anomalous events affect agriculture, forestry, fuel consumption, etc., and thus deserve in-depth analysis. Our analysis indicates that the high anomalies of the surface-air temperature are predominantly due to the southwesterly flow from the eastern North Atlantic, with a weak contribution by southerly flow from the western Mediterranean. Backward trajectories based on the SSM/I and NCEP Reanalysis datasets traced from west-central Europe indicate that the warm air masses flowing into Europe originate in the southern North Atlantic, where the surface-air temperatures exceed by 15c or more the climatic norms in Europe for late-November or early-December. Because such large ocean-to-continent temperature differences characterize the winter conditions, we refer to this episode which started in late November as occurring in the early winter. In this season, with the sun low over the horizon in Europe, absorption of insolation by the surface has little significance. The effect of cloudiness, a corollary to the low-level maritime-air advection, is a warming by a reduction of heat loss (greenhouse effect). In contrast, in the summer, clouds, by reducing absorption of insolation, produce a cooling, effect at the surface. |
author |
Ardizzone, J. Angell, J. K. Terry, J. Jusem, J. C. Koslowsky, D. Otterman, J. Atlas, R. Demaree, G. Einaudi, Franco |
author_facet |
Ardizzone, J. Angell, J. K. Terry, J. Jusem, J. C. Koslowsky, D. Otterman, J. Atlas, R. Demaree, G. Einaudi, Franco |
author_sort |
Ardizzone, J. |
title |
The Extremely Warm Early Winter 2000 in Europe: What is the Forcing |
title_short |
The Extremely Warm Early Winter 2000 in Europe: What is the Forcing |
title_full |
The Extremely Warm Early Winter 2000 in Europe: What is the Forcing |
title_fullStr |
The Extremely Warm Early Winter 2000 in Europe: What is the Forcing |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Extremely Warm Early Winter 2000 in Europe: What is the Forcing |
title_sort |
extremely warm early winter 2000 in europe: what is the forcing |
publishDate |
2001 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20010026412 |
op_coverage |
Unclassified, Unlimited, Publicly available |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_source |
CASI |
op_relation |
Document ID: 20010026412 http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20010026412 |
op_rights |
No Copyright |
_version_ |
1766128486997557248 |