Reconciling North Atlantic climate modes: revised monthly indices for the East Atlantic and the Scandinavian patterns beyond the 20th century

Comas-Bru, L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7882-4996 and Hernández, A. (2018) Reconciling North Atlantic climate modes: revised monthly indices for the East Atlantic and the Scandinavian patterns beyond the 20th century. Earth System Science Data, 10 (4). pp. 2329-2344. ISSN 1866-3516 doi: 10.5194/essd-10-2329-2018

Abstract/Summary

Climate variability in the North Atlantic sector is commonly ascribed to the North Atlantic Oscillation. However, recent studies have shown that taking into account the second and third mode of variability (namely the East Atlantic – EA – and the Scandinavian – SCA – patterns) greatly improves our understanding of their controlling mechanisms, as well as their impact on climate. The most commonly used EA and SCA indices span the period from 1950 to present, which is too short, for example, to calibrate palaeoclimate records or assess their variability over multi-decadal scales. To tackle this, here, we create new EOF-based (empirical orthogonal function) monthly EA and SCA indices covering the period from 1851 to present, and compare them with their equivalent instrumental indices. We also review and discuss the value of these new records and provide insights into the reasons why different sources of data may give slightly different time series. Furthermore, we demonstrate that using these patterns to explain climate variability beyond the winter season needs to be done carefully due to their non-stationary behaviour. The datasets are available at 10.1594/PANGAEA.892769.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/81477
Identification Number/DOI	10.5194/essd-10-2329-2018
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Geography and Environmental Science
Publisher	Copernicus Publications
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