Air flow influences on local climate: observed and simulated mean relationships for the United Kingdom

Climate Research

Jonathan M. Gregory¹  Philip D. Jones¹  Timothy J. Osborn¹  Mike Hulme¹  Declan Conway¹ 

关键词: UK Climate;    Synoptic circulation;    Climate model evaluation;    HadCM2;   

DOI  :  10.3354/cr013173

来源: Inter-Research Science Publishing

【 摘 要 】

ABSTRACT: Synoptic-scale air flow variability over the United Kingdom is measured on a daily time scale by following previous work to define 3 indices: geostrophic flow strength, vorticity and direction. Comparing the observed distribution of air flowindex values with those determined from a simulation with the Hadley Centre's global climate model (HadCM2) identifies some minor systematic biases in the model's synoptic circulation but demonstrates that the major features are well simulated. Therelationship between temperature and precipitation from parts of the United Kingdom and these air flow indices (either singly or in pairs) is found to be very similar in both the observations and model output; indeed the simulated and observedprecipitation relationships are found to be almost interchangeable in a quantitative sense. These encouraging results imply that some reliability can be assumed for single grid-box and regional output from this climate model; this applies only tothose grid boxes evaluated here (which do not have high or complex orography), only to the portion of variability that is controlled by synoptic air flow variations, and only to those surface variables considered here (temperature and precipitation).

【 授权许可】

Unknown