Lagged influence of Atlantic and Pacific climate patterns on European extreme precipitation

Abstract:

The risk of European extreme precipitation and flooding as an economic and humanitarian disaster is modulated by large-scale atmospheric processes that operate over (multi-)decadal periods and transport huge quantities of moisture inland from the oceans. Yet the previous studies for better understanding of extreme precipitation variability and its skillful seasonal pbkp_rediction are far from comprehensive. Here we show that the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and, to a lesser extent, winter ENSO signal have a controlling influence not only concurrently on European extreme precipitation anomaly in winter, but in a delayed way on the extremes in the following seasons. In a similar pattern, there is a strong footprint of summer atmospheric circulations over the Mediterranean Sea on summer extreme precipitation and with 1-, 2- and 3-season lags on the following autumn, winter and spring extremes. The combined influences of the different atmospheric circulation patterns mark a significant step forward for an improved pbkp_redictability of European extreme precipitation in the state-of-the-art seasonal pbkp_rediction systems.

Año de publicación:

2018

Keywords:

Fuente:

scopus