Large-scale patterns of Eurasian surface meteorological fields influenced by the climate shift of 1976–1977

Abstract

On the basis of the 1950–2001 NCEP reanalysis data, space-time variability of the surface pressure (SP), surface air temperature (SAT), and precipitation fields in Eurasia is studied in connection with the 1976–1977 climate shift. The effect of the shift manifests itself in the change in the space-time structure of empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) in all these fields from September to April. For SP and SAT, during this period, only two first EOFs are stable with respect to the climate shift. Also, for SAT and SP, the second EOFs are stable from November to April and from September to December, respectively. For the precipitation field, even the first EOFs are unstable during the whole period, with the exception of January and February. Instability with respect to the climate shift appears first in change in the EOF spatial pattern of the fields. Stability of the first modes of the Eurasian meteorological fields to the 1976–1977 climate shift is caused by a relative stability of the North Atlantic Oscillation, which explains up to 70 and 30% of variance of the first and second EOFs, respectively, of the hydrometeorological fields in the region.