Interannual variability of Central European climate parameters and their relation to the large-scale circulation
P. C. Werner (October 1994)
This part is the continuation of the publication Werner, v. Storch (1993) that dealt with the January/February mean temperature. It uses the same method as in part I for these investigations.
An Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analysis shows that the JJA temperature variability is almost entirely controlled by the first two EOFs (71% and 15%). The same holds for the JF sum of precipitation variability (52% and 17%). The JJA sum of precipitation variability is also controlled by the first two EOFs (41% and 16%) and partially by the third EOF (10%).
The relationship of the temperature and the precipitation field to the large-scale circulation, represented by the North Atlantic/European sea-level pressure (SLP) field, is investigated by a Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA). The number of CCA pairs which account for most of the temperature variance depends on the meteorological parameter and the season. The connection between the large-scale circulation and the seasonal precipitation or the summer mean temperature is weaker. An application of the CCA method to the climatic downscaling problem is only limited possible.
