Detection of external influence on trends of atmospheric storminess and northern oceans wave heights

作者：Wang Xiaolan L^*; Swail Val R; Zwiers Francis W; Zhang Xuebin; Feng Yang

来源：Climate Dynamics, 2009, 32(2-3): 189-203.

DOI：10.1007/s00382-008-0442-2

• Atmospheric storminess
• Ocean wave heights
• Climate extremes
• Non-stationary generalized extreme value analysis
• Trend analysis
• Natural and anthropogenic forcing
• Detection analysis
• Climate change

The atmospheric storminess as inferred from geostrophic wind energy and ocean wave heights have increased in boreal winter over the past half century in the high-latitudes of the northern hemisphere (especially the northeast North Atlantic), and have decreased in more southerly northern latitudes. This study shows that these trend patterns contain a detectable response to anthropogenic and natural forcing combined. The effect of external influence is found to be strongest in the winter hemisphere, that is, in the northern hemisphere in January-March and in the southern hemisphere in July-September. However, the simulated response to anthropogenic and natural forcing combined, which was obtained directly from climate models in the case of geostrophic wind energy and indirectly via an empirical downscaling procedure in the case of ocean wave heights, is significantly weaker than the magnitude of the observed changes in these parameters.

• 出版日期2009-2