Changing regional climatic gradients in the United Kingdom

Mayes, Julian

doi:10.1111/j.1475-4959.2000.tb00013.x

Cited by 25 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 30 publications

(24 reference statements)

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“…Spatial variations in weather are known to reflect regional responses to synoptic circulation patterns (Mayes, 2000). Rivers displaying the greatest forecast potential are primarily located in the northwest and southwest of England and Wales.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The absence of precipitation is, in turn, translated into lower values in the reconstructed river flow series. Furthermore, there is a well-known relationship between the NAO and rainfall in the UK through its effect on the frequency of westerly winds (Mayes, 2000), as well as strong negative correlations between the NAOI and dry-spell persistence in some parts of the UK (Wilks and Wilby, 1999).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent decades, there has also been a steepening of the northwest to southeast precipitation gradient (Jones and Conway, 1997;Mayes, 1998Mayes, , 2000. UK climate change scenarios further suggest that these temporal and spatial trends will continue into this century, with average annual run off expected to decrease in southeast England by as much as 20% by 2050 (Arnell, 1998;Hulme and Jenkins, 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Prospects for seasonal forecasting of summer drought and low river flow anomalies in England and Wales

Wedgbrow

Wilby

Fox

et al. 2002

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Future climate change scenarios suggest enhanced temporal and spatial gradients in water resources across the UK. Provision of seasonal forecast statistics for surface climate variables could alleviate some negative effects of climate change on water resource infrastructure. This paper presents a preliminary investigation of spatial and temporal relationships between large-scale North Atlantic climatic indices, drought severity and river flow anomalies in England and Wales. Potentially useful predictive relationships are explored between winter indices of the Polar-Eurasian (POL) teleconnection pattern, the North Atlantic oscillation (NAO), North Atlantic sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs), and the summer Palmer drought severity index (PDSI) and reconstructed river flows in England and Wales. Correlation analyses, coherence testing and an index of forecast potential, demonstrate that preceding winter values of the POL index, SSTA (and to a lesser extent the NAO), provide indications of summer and early autumn drought severity and river flow anomalies in parts of northwest, southwest and southeast England. Correlation analyses demonstrate that positive winter anomalies of T1, POL index and NAO index are associated with negative PDSI (i.e. drought) across eastern parts of the British Isles in summer (r < 0.51). Coherence tests show that a positive winter SSTA (1871SSTA ( -1995 and POL index (1950-95) have preceded below-average summer river flows in the northwest and southwest of England and Wales in 70 to 100% of summers. The same rivers have also experienced below-average flows during autumn following negative winter phases of the NAO index in 64 to 93% of summers . Possible explanations for the predictor-predictand relationships are considered, including the 'memory' of groundwater, and ocean-atmosphere coupling, and regional manifestations of synoptic rainfall processes. However, further research is necessary to increase the number of years and predictor variables from which it is possible to derive rules that may be useful for forecasting.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Prospects for seasonal forecasting of summer drought and low river flow anomalies in England and Wales

Wedgbrow

Wilby

Fox

et al. 2002

Intl Journal of Climatology

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“…The NAO and related large-scale circulation indices such as the Eastern Atlantic Oscillation have been proposed as drivers of climatic variability over Ireland (Murphy and Washington, 2001;Butler et al, 2007). Other periodic variations in Irish climate have been identified, for example Butler et al (2007) used wavelet analysis to identify a 22-year cycle in seasonal rainfall and surface temperatures, ascribed to solar activity, and Mayes (2000) noted that the NAO is itself influenced by large-scale temperature patterns.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short Duration Rainfall Extremes in Ireland: Influence of Climatic Variability

Kiely

2010

Water Resour Manage

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Type of publicationArticle (peer-reviewed) A widely-noted change in the North Atlantic circulation in the 1970s affected the spatial distribution and seasonal pattern of rainfall over Ireland. To examine if this was accompanied by a change on short duration precipitation extremes, multidecadal time series from the second half of the twentieth century of thirteen hourly precipitation stations in Ireland have been analysed for the occurrence of extreme values over several durations of up to 24 hours. Strong evidence was found for a change since the late 1970s in short duration rainfall depths, particularly in the west of the country. Precipitation depth-duration-frequency analyses over two sub-periods showed that at several locations, storm event magnitudes which corresponded to a 30 year return period before 1975 had a return period close to 10 years in the post-1975 period. The widespread increase in spring and autumn rainfall and the local increases in the frequencies and magnitudes of severe rainfalls have implications for engineering hydrology, flood risk analysis and water resources management. The necessity of using up-to-date data to derive design storm magnitudes is stressed, due to the possible influence of underlying climatic shifts. Furthermore, as non-stationarity has been demonstrated, the use of long timeseries extending beyond thirty years into the past will result in underestimation of storm intensities in many areas.

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“…This was associated with an anticyclonic anomaly that has been particularly apparent in southern Britain. Indeed, since a greater proportion of summer rainfall in the SouthEast is of convectional origin, there was proportionately larger reduction in summer rainfall here (Mayes, 2000).…”

Section: The Rarity Of the Stormmentioning

confidence: 99%