The absence of an Atlantic imprint on the multidecadal variability of wintertime European temperature.

ABSTRACT: Northern Hemisphere climate responds sensitively to multidecadal variability in North Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST). It is therefore surprising that an imprint of such variability is conspicuously absent in wintertime western European temperature, despite that Europe's climate is strongly influenced by its neighbouring ocean, where multidecadal variability in basin-average SST persists in all seasons. Here we trace the cause of this missing imprint to a dynamic anomaly of the atmospheric circulation that masks its thermodynamic response to SST anomalies. Specifically, differences in the pathways Lagrangian particles take to Europe during anomalous SST winters suppress the expected fluctuations in air-sea heat exchange accumulated along those trajectories. Because decadal variabili

SUBMITTER: Yamamoto A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4796317 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature