Relationship of late-winter temperatures in Europe to North Atlantic surface winds: A correlation analysis

The relationship between European surface temperature and winds over the eastern North Atlantic are investigated for the years 1988 to 1997. Daily Special Sensor Microwave Imager SSM/I observations are used to evaluate a monthly surface wind index that quantifies the influence of southwesterly flow. Our wind index and the monthly-mean surface-air temperatures in late winter and early spring over France and northern-latitude Europe are highly correlated. In February, the year-to-year increases/decreases match every year for France (correlation of 0.82 with the Index); and every year with just one exception for Europe (correlation with the Index of 0.76 for a longitudinal strip through Europe 45-50 degrees N, and 0.73 for the 50-60 degrees N strip). In March, the increases/decreases of the wind Index and of the temperatures for France also match, but the correlation with the Index is lower, 0.65. The high correlation between our Index and the large interannual fluctuations in the monthly temperature in late winter and early spring indicate that the onset of the spring conditions in Europe is significantly influenced by the wind patterns over the eastern North Atlantic. Coinciding with the fluctuations from warm-Europe/high-Index winter to the opposite conditions, we observe "seesaw" effects, fluctuations over the North Atlantic, in opposite directions in the east (25-5 degrees W), and the west (65-45 degrees W). In the low-Index years we find that: (a) the surface-air temperatures in the west are appreciably higher than in the east (but slightly lower in the high-Index year), and (b) the difference between the 500 mb meridional wind in the west and that in the east is positive and large, exceeding 10 m s(-1) (but it becomes negative and small in the high-Index years). The "seesaw" effects suggest that a positive feedback exits between these cross-Atlantic temperature differences and the surface winds.