The Influence of European Climate Variability Mechanism on Air Temperatures in Romania

Abstract

Abstract The present paper investigates on the spatial and temporal variability of maximum and minimum air-temperatures in Romania and their connection to the European climate variability. The European climate variability is expressed by large scale parameters, which are roughly represented by the geopotential height at 500 hPa (H500) and air temperature at 850 hPa (T850). The Romanian data are represented by the time series at 22 weather stations, evenly distributed over the entire country’s territory. The period that was taken into account was 1961-2010, for the summer and winter seasons. The method of empirical orthogonal functions (EOF) has been used, in order to analyze the connection between the temperature variability in Romania and the same variability at a larger scale, by taking into consideration the atmosphere circulation. The time series associated to the first two EOF patterns of local temperatures and large-scale anomalies were considered with regard to trends and shifts in their mean values. The non- Mann-Kendall and Pettitt parametric tests were used in this respect. The results showed a strong correlation between T850 parameter and minimum and maximum air temperatures in Romania. Also, the ample variance expressed by the first EOF configurations suggests a connection between local and large scale climate variability.