The Dynamical Influence of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation on Continental Climate

AbstractThe Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) in sea surface temperature (SST) has been shown to influence the climate of the surrounding continents. However, it is unclear to what extent the observed impact of the AMO is related to the thermodynamical influence of the SST variability or the changes in large-scale atmospheric circulation. Here, an analog method is used to decompose the observed impact of the AMO into dynamical and residual components of surface air temperature (SAT) and precipitation over the adjacent continents. Over Europe the influence of the AMO is clearest during the summer, when the warm SAT anomalies are interpreted to be primarily thermodynamically driven by warm upstream SST anomalies but also amplified by the anomalous atmospheric circulation. The overall precipitation response to the AMO in summer is generally less significant than the SAT but is mostly dynamically driven. The decomposition is also applied to the North American summer and the Sahel rainy season. Both dyna...

• Publication year

  2017

• Venue

  Journal of Climate

• Publication date

  2017-04-01

• Fields of study

  Geology, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0345.1
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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