Determination of climatological seasons for the East Coast of the U.S. using an air mass-based classification

Abstract

This paper discusses the application of a year-round synoptic classification procedure to define climatolog~cal seasons based upon the frequency occuiience of seasonal air masses The classification is developed through air inass 'seed day identification and discriminant function analysis, and assigns each day to 1 of 18 ail mass types for each of 14 stations along the East Coast of the United States Unlike the 'astronomical definitlon of seasons, which divides a year into 4 equal p e i~o d s , the length of wlnter ranges fiom about 1'4 mo in Mlami, Florida to more than 4 mo in Portland, hdaine as determined by air mass frequencies The suminer extends more than 5 mo in Flonda, whlle it only lasts 3 mo in Maine In the mld-Atlantic region, there ale 2 longer seasons (summer and wlntei, about 4 mo edch) and 2 shorter seasons (spnny and fall, about 2 mo each) The seasonal definitlon proposed here more closely corresponds to phenological responses than do t r a d~t~o n a l def~nitions The lnforination can be applied to numerous environmentdl assessment problems, including animal demographics and habitat distnbutions, plant phenology and subsequent pollen release, m~gration and hibernation patterns, human health and psychological iesponses to climate, and agncultural p l a n n~n g activities

Evaluating changes in season length, onset, and end dates across the United States (1948–2012)

“…Instead, the largest variability in seasonal onset occurred in along the Gulf Coast and in California. One reason for this may be because of coastal locations being more greatly influenced by local factors such as proximity to water, a hypothesis supported by Cheng and Kalkstein () who suggested proximity to water as a contributing factor to length of seasons. Another possible explanation for the increased variability along the coast may be a manifestation of methodology in that some of the coastal locations may not experience the four traditional seasons used in this study.…”

Possible Impacts of Climate Change on Freezing Rain Using Downscaled Future Climate Scenarios: Updated for Eastern Canada

“…One of the reasons is its ability to categorize a complex set of meteorological variables as a coherent index (Yarnal, 1993;Cheng and Kalkstein, 1997), which can facilitate climate change impact analysis. An automated synoptic weather typing procedure, based primarily on similarity and differentiation of air mass characteristics within and between weather types, was used to assign every day in the dataset to a distinctive weather type from November to April (October to May for northern stations) from 1958/59 to 2006/07.…”

An evaluation of the nature and timing of summer human thermal discomfort in Athens, Greece

“…Although this may seem self evident, phenological studies (Jaagus & Ahas 2000, Otterman et al 2002 have only shown earlier arrival times for spring in Europe as opposed to changes in seasonal timing at the beginning and end of the summer. Protraction of the season of discomfort may be related to systematic changes in the timing of seasonal atmospheric circulation changes and thus the timing of the climatological seasons (Cheng & Kalkstein 1997) over southern Europe. Although no studies have been specifically directed at determining this, there appears to have been changes in the frequency of European circulation types (Bardossy & Caspary 1990, Nemesova & Klimperova 1995, Huth 2001.…”