Air flow influences on local climate: observed and simulated mean relationships for the United Kingdom

Osborn, T. J., Conway, D., Hulme, M., Gregory, J. M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1296-8644 and Jones, P. D. (1999) Air flow influences on local climate: observed and simulated mean relationships for the United Kingdom. Climate Research, 13 (3). pp. 173-191. ISSN 0936-577X doi: 10.3354/cr013173

Abstract/Summary

Synoptic-scale air flow variability over the United Kingdom is measured on a daily time scale by following previous work to define 3 indices: geostrophic flow strength, vorticity and direction. Comparing the observed distribution of air flow index values with those determined from a simulation with the Hadley Centre’s global climate model (HadCM2) identifies some minor systematic biases in the model’s synoptic circulation but demonstrates that the major features are well simulated. The relationship between temperature and precipitation from parts of the United Kingdom and these air flow indices (either singly or in pairs) is found to be very similar in both the observations and model output; indeed the simulated and observed precipitation relationships are found to be almost interchangeable in a quantitative sense. These encouraging results imply that some reliability can be assumed for single grid-box and regional output from this climate model; this applies only to those grid boxes evaluated here (which do not have high or complex orography), only to the portion of variability that is controlled by synoptic air flow variations, and only to those surface variables considered here (temperature and precipitation).

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/19438
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > NCAS
Publisher	Inter Research
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