Skip to main content
Log in

DECADAL VARIATIONS IN CLIMATE ASSOCIATED WITH THE NORTH ATLANTIC OSCILLATION

  • Published:
Climatic Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Large changes in the wintertime atmospheric circulation have occurred over the past two decades over the ocean basins of the Northern Hemisphere, and these changes have had a profound effect on regional distributions of surface temperature and precipitation. The changes over the North Pacific have been well documented and have contributed to increases in temperatures across Alaska and much of western North America and to decreases in sea surface temperatures over the central North Pacific. The variations over the North Atlantic are related to changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Over the past 130 years, the NAO has exhibited considerable variability at quasi-biennial and quasi-decadal time scales, and the latter have become especially pronounced the second half of this century. Since 1980, the NAO has tended to remain in one extreme phase and has accounted for a substantial part of the observed wintertime surface warming over Europe and downstream over Eurasia and cooling in the northwest Atlantic. Anomalies in precipitation, including dry wintertime conditions over southern Europe and the Mediterranean and wetter-than-normal conditions over northern Europe and Scandinavia since 1980, are also linked to the behavior of the NAO. Changes in the monthly mean flow over the Atlantic are accompanied by a northward shift in the storm tracks and associated synoptic eddy activity, and these changes help to reinforce and maintain the anomalous mean circulation in the upper troposphere. It is important that studies of trends in local climate records, such as those from high elevation sites, recognize the presence of strong regional patterns of change associated with phenomena like the NAO.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alley, R. B., Meese, D. A., Shuman, C. A., Gow, A. J., Taylor, K. C., Grootes, P. M., White, J. W. C., Ram, M., Waddington, E. D., Mayewski, P. A., and Zielinski, G. A.: 1993, ‘Abrupt Increase in Greenland Snow Accumulation at the End of the Younger Dryas Event’, Nature 362, 527–529.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barlow, L. K., White, J. W. C., Barry, R. G., Rogers, J. C., and Grootes, P. M.: 1993, ‘The North Atlantic Oscillation Signature in Deuterium and Deuterium Excess Signals in the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 Ice Core, 1840–1970’, Geophys. Res. Lett. 20, 2901–2904.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnett, T. P.: 1985, ‘Variations in Near-Global Sea Level Pressure’, J. Atmos. Sci. 42, 478–501.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnston, A. G. and Livezey, R. E.: 1987, ‘Classification, Seasonality and Persistence of Low-Frequency Atmospheric Circulation Patterns’, Mon. Wea. Rev. 115, 1083–1126.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barry, R. G.: 1990, ‘Changes in Mountain Climate and Glacio-Hydrological Responses’, Mountain Res. Develop. 10, 161–170.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beniston, M. and Rebetez, M.: 1996, ‘Regional Behavior of Minimum Temperatures in Switzerland for the Period 1979–1993’, Theor. Appl. Climatol. 53, 231–243.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beniston, M., Rebetez, M., Giorgi, F., and Marinucci, M. R.: 1994, ‘An Analysis of Regional Climate Change in Switzerland’, Theor. Appl. Climatol. 49, 135–159.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bromwich, D. H., Robasky, F. M., Keen, R. A., Bolzan, J. F.: 1993, ‘Modeled Variations of Precipitation over the Greenland Ice Sheet’, J. Clim. 6, 1253–1268.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cayan, D. R.: 1992, ‘Latent and Sensible Heat Flux Anomalies over the Northern Oceans: The Connection to Monthly Atmospheric Circulation’, J. Clim. 5, 354–369.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cayan, D. R. and Peterson, D.H.: 1989, ‘The Influence of North Pacific Atmospheric Circulation on Streamflow in the West’, Amer. Geophys. Union, Geophys. Monogr. 55, 375–397.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen, T.-C., van Loon, H., Wu, K.-D., and Yen, M.-C.: 1992, ‘Changes in the Atmospheric Circulation over the North Pacific-North America Area since 1950’, J. Met. Soc. Japan 70, 1137–1146.

    Google Scholar 

  • Christy, J. R. and McNider, R. T.: 1994, ‘Satellite Greenhouse Warming’, Nature 367, 325.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dickson, R. R. and Namias, J.: 1976, ‘North American Influences on the Circulation and Climate of the North American Sector’, Mon. Wea. Rev. 104, 1255–1265.

    Google Scholar 

  • Douglas, A. V., Cayan, D. R., and Namias, J.: 1982, ‘Large-Scale Changes in North Pacific and North American Weather Patterns in Recent Decades’, Mon. Wea. Rev. 112, 1851–1862.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eischeid, J. K., Diaz, H. F., Bradley, R. S., and Jones, P. D.: 1991, A Comprehensive Precipitation Data Set for Global Land Areas, U.S. Dept. of Energy Report No. DOE/ER-69017T-H1, Washington, D.C., p. 81.

  • Fisher, D. A. and Koerner, R. M.: 1994: ‘Signal and Noise in Four Ice-Core Records from the Agassiz Ice Cape, Ellesmere Island, Canada: Details of the Last Millennium for Stalbe Isotopes, Melt, and Solid Conductivity’, Holocene 4, 113–120.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gaffen, D. J., Barnett, T. P., and Elliott, W. P.: 1991, ‘Space and Time Scales of Global Tropospheric Moisture’, J. Clim. 4, 989–1008.

    Google Scholar 

  • Graham, N. E., Barnett, T. P., Wilde, R., Ponater, M., and Schubert, S.: 1994, ‘On the Roles of Tropical and Midlatitude SSTs in Forcing Interannual to Interdecadal Variability in the Winter Northern Hemisphere Circulation’, J. Clim. 7, 1416–1441.

    Google Scholar 

  • Graham, N. E.: 1995, ‘Simulation of Recent Global Temperature Trends’, Science 267, 666–671.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gutzler, D. S.: 1996, ‘Low-Frequency Ocean-Atmosphere Variability Across the Tropical Western Pacific’, J. Atmos. Sci. 53, 2773–2785.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haeberli, W. P., Müller, P., Alean, P., and Bösch, H.: 1989, ‘Glacier Changes Following the Little Ice Age: A Survey of the International Data Basis and Its Perspecstives’, in Oerlemans, J. (ed.), Glacier Fluctuations and Climatic Change, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 77–101.

    Google Scholar 

  • Held, I. M., Lyons, S. W., and Nigam, S.: 1989, ‘Transients and the Extratropical Response to El Niño’, J. Atmos. Sci. 46, 163–174.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoerling, M. P. and Ting, M.-F.: 1994, ‘Organization of Extratropical Transients during El Niño’, J. Clim. 7, 745–766.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hense, A., Krahe, P., and Flohn, H.: 1988, ‘Recent Fluctuations of Tropospheric Temperature and Water Vapour Content in the Tropics’, Meteorol. Atmos. Phys. 38, 215–227.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hurrell, J. W.: 1995a, ‘Decadal Trends in the North Atlantic Oscillation Regional Temperatures and Precipitation’, Science 269, 676–679.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hurrell, J. W.: 1995b, ‘Transient Eddy Forcing of the Rotational Flow During Northern Winter’, J. Atmos. Sci. 52, 2286–2301.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hurrell, J. W.: 1996, ‘Influence of Variations in Extratropical Wintertime Teleconnections on Northern Hemisphere Temperature’, Geophys. Res. Lett. 23, 665–668.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hurrell, J. W. and Trenberth, K. E.: 1996, ‘Satellite versus Surface Estimates of Air Temperature since 1979’, J. Clim. 9, 2222–2232.

    Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change): 1996, Houghton, J. T., Meira Filho, L. G., Callander, B. A., Harris, N., Kattenberg, A., and Maskell, K. (eds.), Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate Change, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, p. 572.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, P. D.: 1994, ‘Recent Warming in Global Temperature Series’, Geophys. Res. Lett. 21, 1149–1152.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, P. D. and Briffa, K. R.: 1992, ‘Global Surface Air Temperature Variations Over the Twentieth Century: Part 1 Spatial, Temporal and Seasonal Details’, Holocene 2, 174–188.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kawamura, R.: 1994, ‘A Rotated EOF Analysis of Global Sea Surface Temperature Variability with Interannual and Interdecadal Scales’, J. Phys. Oceanogr. 24, 707–715.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kitoh, A.: 1991, ‘Interannual Variations in an Atmospheric GCM Forced by the 1970–1989 SST. Part II: Low Frequency Variability of the Wintertime Northern Hemisphere Extratropics’, J. Meteor. Soc. Japan 69, 271–291.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kumar, A., Leetmaa, A., and Ji, M.: 1994, ‘Simulations of Atmospheric Variability Induced by Sea Surface Temperatures and Implications for Global Warming’, Science 266, 632–634.

    Google Scholar 

  • Latif, M. and Barnett, T. P.: 1994, ‘Causes of Decadal Climate Variability over the North Pacific and North America’, Science 266, 634–637.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lau, N.-C. and Nath, M. J.: 1994, ‘A Modeling Study of the Relative Roles of Tropical and Extratropical SST Anomalies in the Variability of the Global Atmosphere-Ocean System’, J. Clim. 7, 1184–1207.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manak, D. K. and Mysak, L. A.: 1987, ‘Climatic Atlas of Arctic Sea Ice Extent and Anomalies 1953–1984’, Climate Research Group Report 87-8.

  • Miller, A. J., Cayan, D. R., Barnett, T. P., Graham, N. E., and Oberhuber, J. M.: 1994, ‘Interdecadal Variability of the Pacific Ocean: Model Response to Observed Heat Flux and Wind Stress Anomalies’, Clim. Dyn. 9, 287–302.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moses, T., Kiladis, G. N., Diaz, H. F., and Barry, R. G.: 1987, ‘Characteristics and Frequency Reversals in Mean Sea Level Pressure in the North Atlantic Sector and Their Relationships to Long-Term Temperature Trends’, J. Climatol. 7, 13–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Namias, J.: 1959, ‘Recent Seasonal Interactions Between North Pacific Waters and the Overlying Atmospheric Circulation’, J. Geophys. Res. 64, 631–646.

    Google Scholar 

  • Namias, J.: 1963, ‘Large-Scale Air-Sea Interactions over the North Pacific from Summer 1962 Through the Subsequent Winter’, J. Geophys. Res. 68, 6171–6186.

    Google Scholar 

  • Namias, J.: 1969. ‘Seasonal Interactions Between the North Pacific Ocean and the Atmosphere During the 1960s’, Mon. Wea. Rev. 97, 173–192.

    Google Scholar 

  • Namias, J., Yuan, X., and Cayan, D.R.: 1988, ‘Persistence of North Pacific Sea Surface Temperature and Atmospheric Flow Patterns’, J. Clim. 1, 682–703.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nitta, T., and Yamada, S.: 1989, ‘Recent Warming of Tropical Sea Surface Temperature and Its Relationship to the Northern Hemisphere Circulation’, J. Met. Soc. Japan 67, 375–383.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oerlemans, J.: 1994, ‘Quantifying Global Warming from the Retreat of Glaciers’, Science 264, 243–245.

    Google Scholar 

  • Palecki, M. A. and Leathers, D. J.: 1993, ‘Northern Hemisphere Extratropical Circulation Anomalies and Recent January Land Surface Temperature Trends’, Geophys. Res. Lett. 20, 819–822.

    Google Scholar 

  • Palmer, T. N.: 1993, ‘A Nonlinear Dynamical Perspective on Climate Change’, Weather 48, 314–326.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parker, D. E. and Folland, C. K.: 1988, ‘The Nature of Climatic Variability’, Met. Mag. 117, 201–210.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parker, D. E., Jones, P. D., Folland, C. K., and Bevan, A.: 1994, ‘Interdecadal Changes of Surface Temperatures Since the Late 19th Century’, J. Geophys. Res. 99, 14373–14399.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogers, J. C.: 1984, ‘The Association between the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Southern Oscillation in the Northern Hemisphere’, Mon. Wea. Rev. 112, 1999–2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogers, J. C.: 1990, ‘Patterns of Low-Frequency Monthly Sea Level Pressure Variability (1899–1986) and Associated Wave Cyclone Frequencies’, J. Clim. 3, 1364–1379.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogers, J. C. and Mosley-Thompson, E.: 1995, ‘Atlantic Arctic Cyclones and the Mild Siberian Winters of the 1980s’, Geophys. Res. Lett. 22, 799–802.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trenberth, K. E.: 1984, ‘Signal Versus Noise in the Southern Oscillation’, Mon. Wea. Rev. 112, 326–332.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trenberth, K. E.: 1990, ‘Recent Observed Interdecadal Climate Changes in the Northern Hemisphere’, Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 71, 988–993.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trenberth, K. E.: 1991, ‘Storm Tracks in the Southern Hemisphere’, J. Atmos. Sci. 48, 2159–2178.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trenberth, K. E.: 1993, ‘Northern Hemisphere Climate Change: Physical Processes and Observed Changes’, in Mooney, H. A., Fuentes, E. R., and Kronberg, B. I. (eds.), Earth System Responses to Global Change: Contrasts between North and South America, Chapter 3, Academic Press, pp. 35–59.

  • Trenberth, K. E. and Hoar, T. J.: 1996, ‘The 1990–1995 El Niño-Southern Oscillation Event: Longest on Record’, Geophys. Res. Lett. 23, 57–60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trenberth, K. E. and Hurrell, J. W.: 1994, ‘Decadal Atmosphere-Ocean Variations in the Pacific’, Clim. Dyn. 9, 303–319.

    Google Scholar 

  • van Loon, H.: 1979, ‘The Association Between Latitudinal Temperature Gradient and Eddy Transport. Part I: Transport of Sensible Heat in Winter’, Mon. Wea. Rev. 107, 525–534.

    Google Scholar 

  • van Loon, H. and Rogers, J. C.: 1978, ‘The Seesaw in Winter Temperatures between Greenland and Northern Europe. Part I: General Description’, Mon. Wea. Rev. 106, 296–310.

    Google Scholar 

  • van Loon, H. and Williams, J.: 1976, ‘The Connection between Trends of Mean Temperature and Circulation at the Surface: Part I. Winter’, Mon. Wea. Rev. 104, 365–380.

    Google Scholar 

  • van Loon, H. and Williams, J.: 1980, ‘The Association between Latitudinal Temperature Gradient and Eddy Transport. Part II. Relationships between Sensible Heat Transport by Stationary Waves and Wind, Pressure and Temperature in Winter’, Mon. Wea. Rev. 108, 604–614.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walker, G. T. and Bliss, E. W.: 1932, ‘World Weather V.’, Mem. Roy. Meteor. Soc. 4, 53–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallace, J. M. and Gutzler, D. S.: 1981, ‘Teleconnections in the Geopotential Height Field During the Northern Hemisphere Winter’, Mon. Wea. Rev. 109, 784–812.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallace, J. M., Zhang, Y., and Renwick, J. A.: 1995, ‘Dynamic Contribution to Hemispheric Mean Temperature Trends’, Science 270, 780–783.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallace, J. M., Zhang, Y., and Bajuk, L.: 1996, ‘Interpretation of Interdecadal Trends in Northern Hemisphere Surface Air Temperature’, J. Clim. 9, 249–259.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walsh, J. E., Chapman, W. L., and Shy, T. L.: 1996, ‘Recent Decrease of Sea Level Pressure in the Central Arctic’, J. Clim. 9, 480–486.

    Google Scholar 

  • World Glacier Monitoring Service: 1994, Glacier Mass Balance Bulletin No. 3, 1992–1993.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

HURRELL, J.W., VAN LOON, H. DECADAL VARIATIONS IN CLIMATE ASSOCIATED WITH THE NORTH ATLANTIC OSCILLATION. Climatic Change 36, 301–326 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005314315270

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005314315270

Keywords

Navigation