skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Reconstruction of Central European daily weather types back to 1763

Journal Article · · International Journal of Climatology
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.4974· OSTI ID:1565540
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. Univ. of Bern, Bern (Switzerland). Inst. of Geography and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research
  2. Univ. of Grenoble-Alpes, Grenoble (France). Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement
+ Show Author Affiliations

Weather type classifications (WTCs) are a simple tool to analyse variations in weather patterns. Long series of WTCs could be used to address decadal changes in weather as a basis for studying changes in variability or extremes or for addressing contributions of sea-surface temperature or external forcings using climate models. However, there is no long series of daily objective weather types (WTs). A new method (Shortest Mahalanobis Distance, SMD) using daily European weather data is developed to reconstruct WTCs back in time. Here the SMD method is applied on the Cluster Analysis of Principal Components (CAP9) classification used by MeteoSwiss. The CAP9 daily WT time series (computed with ERA-40) is used as reference over the 1958–1998 period. Daily data (temperature, mean sea level pressure and pressure tendency) from 13 European stations covering the period 1763–2009 are used for the reconstruction. The reference CAP9 is reduced from nine to seven types so the new daily WTC is called CAP7. As an assessment, CAP7 is compared to the original classification CAP9 and to the same WTs computed with the Twentieth Century Reanalysis (20CR and 20CRv2c). Over the reference period up to 90% of all the daily WTs can be correctly reproduced in the new WTC compared to the original series, with higher reliability in winter than in summer. In addition, the reliability of the classification is increasing from 1763 onward. The annual occurrence of each type reveals some trends, mostly a decrease in the number of cyclonic days and an increase of cyclonic days.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
OSTI ID:
1565540
Journal Information:
International Journal of Climatology, Vol. 37, Issue supplement S1; ISSN 0899-8418
Publisher:
Royal Meteorological SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 25 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (49)

Climatic Changes Since 1700 book January 2015
Variability of the surface atmospheric circulation over Europe, 1774-1995 journal January 2000
Large-scale circulation classification, weather regimes, and local climate over France, the Alps and Western Europe journal January 2001
Day-to-day temperature variability trends in 160- to 275-year-long European instrumental records journal September 2000
Extreme climate, not extreme weather: the summer of 1816 in Geneva, Switzerland journal January 2012
The ERA-40 re-analysis journal October 2005
Daily atmospheric circulation catalogue for western Europe using multivariate techniques journal January 2006
Recent increase in persistence of atmospheric circulation over Europe: comparison with long-term variations since 1881 journal January 2006
Cost733cat – A database of weather and circulation type classifications journal January 2010
Development and comparison of circulation type classifications using the COST 733 dataset and software: DEVELOPMENT AND COMPARISON OF CIRCULATION TYPE CLASSIFICATIONS journal March 2014
Trends and variability of seasonal weather regimes: TRENDS AND VARIABILITY OF SEASONAL WEATHER REGIMES journal April 2013
Reconstructing multi-decadal variations in fluvial flood risk using atmospheric circulation patterns journal April 2013
Enhanced lifetime of atmospheric circulation types over Europe: fact or fiction? journal May 2009
The Weather of the 1780s Over Europe book January 2010
Daily dataset of 20th-century surface air temperature and precipitation series for the European Climate Assessment: EUROPEAN TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION SERIES journal October 2002
Frequency Changes of Weather Types in the Alpine Region since 1945 journal September 1998
Examination of wind storms over Central Europe with respect to circulation weather types and NAO phases journal January 2009
The use of weather types and air flow indices for GCM downscaling journal December 1998
An analysis of present and future ECHAM5 pressure fields using a classification of circulation patterns journal October 2009
A comparison of Lamb circulation types with an objective classification scheme journal September 1993
Daily Milan Temperature and Pressure Series (1763–1998): Completing and Homogenising the Data journal January 2002
A simple statistical-dynamical downscaling scheme based on weather types and conditional resampling: STATISTICAL-DYNAMICAL DOWNSCALING SCHEME journal December 2006
The Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project
  • Compo, G. P.; Whitaker, J. S.; Sardeshmukh, P. D.
  • Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol. 137, Issue 654 https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.776
journal January 2011
Continental-Scale Circulation in the UKHI GCM journal July 1997
Revision and necessary correction of the long-term temperature series of Hohenpeissenberg, 1781–2006 journal February 2009
Solar activity affects the occurrence of synoptic types over Europe journal January 2008
Principal component analysis of the Lamb Catalogue of Daily Weather Types: Part 2, seasonal frequencies and update to 1987 journal September 1990
Changes in atmospheric circulation over Europe detected by objective and subjective methods journal December 2005
Principal component analysis of the lamb catalogue of daily weather types: Part 1, annual frequencies journal April 1982
A daily series of mean sea-level pressure for London, 1692-2007 journal February 2011
ICOADS Release 2.5: extensions and enhancements to the surface marine meteorological archive journal March 2010
How to quantify the resolution of surface climate by circulation types: An example for Alpine precipitation journal January 2010
Evaluating the performance of CMIP3 and CMIP5 global climate models over the north-east Atlantic region journal February 2014
Classifications of Atmospheric Circulation Patterns journal December 2008
Implications of enhanced persistence of atmospheric circulation for the occurrence and severity of temperature extremes journal January 2007
Frequency of Weather Types journal January 1965
Recent climate change in the North Atlantic/European sector journal April 2000
The ERA-Interim reanalysis: configuration and performance of the data assimilation system journal April 2011
Lamb weather types derived from reanalysis products journal April 2012
Use of circulation types classifications to evaluate AR4 climate models over the Euro-Atlantic region journal July 2012
Detection of climate change in Europe by analyzing European atmospheric circulation patterns from 1881 to 1989 journal January 1990
The Summer North Atlantic Oscillation: Past, Present, and Future journal March 2009
A daily series of mean sea-level pressure for Paris, 1670-2007 journal May 2011
The early instrumental warm-bias: a solution for long central European temperature series 1760–2007 journal September 2009
Enhanced lifetime of atmospheric circulation types over Europe: fact or fiction? journal May 2009
Climatic changes since 1700 journal April 2016
The Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project text January 2011
Extreme climate, not extreme weather: the summer of 1816 in Geneva, Switzerland text January 2012
Climatic Changes Since 1700 text January 2015

Cited By (15)

Space-Time Patterns of Meteorological Drought Events in the European Greater Alpine Region Over the Past 210 Years: SPACE-TIME PATTERNS OF DROUGHT EVENTS journal November 2017
A roadmap to climate data rescue services journal June 2018
Daily precipitation variability in the southern Alps since the late 19th century journal February 2019
Reconstruction of Lamb weather type series back to the eighteenth century journal October 2018
A selection of weather type classification systems and examples of their application journal February 2020
Disentangling Drivers of Meteorological Droughts in the European Greater Alpine Region During the Last Two Centuries journal December 2019
Variability of orographic enhancement of precipitation in the Alpine region journal September 2019
Early instrumental meteorological measurements in Switzerland journal January 2019
Statistical reconstruction of daily precipitation and temperature fields in Switzerland back to 1864 journal January 2020
Reconstruction and simulation of an extreme flood event in the Lago Maggiore catchment in 1868 journal January 2018
A roadmap to climate data rescue services text January 2018
Daily precipitation variability in the southern Alps since the late 19th century text January 2019
Reconstruction and simulation of an extreme flood event in the Lago Maggiore catchment in 1868 posted_content May 2018
Reconstruction of Lamb weather type series back to the eighteenth century text January 2019
Reconstruction and simulation of an extreme flood event in the Lago Maggiore catchment in 1868 text January 2018

Similar Records

Probabilistic precipitation and temperature downscaling of the Twentieth Century Reanalysis over France
Journal Article · Wed Mar 16 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Climate of the Past (Online) · OSTI ID:1565540
+1 more
Long-term trends in storm surge climate derived from an ensemble of global surge reconstructions
Journal Article · Wed Aug 03 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · Scientific Reports · OSTI ID:1565540
+3 more
The International Surface Pressure Databank version 2
Journal Article · Sat Jul 25 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Geoscience Data Journal · OSTI ID:1565540
+43 more

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
weather types
synoptic climatology
reconstruction
instrumental data
Europe
atmospheric circulation