Recent climate change in the North Atlantic/European sector

Abstract

The climate variability of the North Atlantic/European sector is characterized by large-scale circulation patterns measured in terms of a time series of two binary variables: the occurrence of a Grosswetter state and of a cluster set of meridional sea level pressure (SLP) gradients (characterizing the westerlies). An outlier test of the decadal behaviour of the residence time of these states identifies the decade 1981–1990 to be the first outlier. The climatological embedding and a possible stochastic/dynamical interpretation are presented. Copyright © 2000 Royal Meteorological Society