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Tracking westerly wind directions over Europe since the middle Holocene
Hsun-Ming Hu1,2, Valerie Trouet3, Christoph Spötl4
1High-Precision MassSpectrometry and Environment Change Laboratory (HISPEC), Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617, Taiwan, ROC. hsunming.hu@gmail.com.
Nature Communications
|December 21, 2022
Summary
Northern westerlies
Area of Science:
- Paleoclimatology and atmospheric science.
Background:
- Northern westerlies variability is crucial for climate evolution but poorly understood.
- Complex Atlantic sea-level pressure dynamics hinder understanding of westerly behavior.
Purpose of the Study:
- To reconstruct past westerly drift and understand its influence on European climate.
- To investigate the relationship between North Atlantic climate dynamics and European weather patterns.
Main Methods:
- Multi-annually resolved westerly drift record from northern Italy over 6,500 years.
- Integration with over 20 other westerly-sensitive climate records.
- Analysis of multi-decadal to multi-centennial climate variability.
Main Results:
- The direction of European westerlies has shifted over the past 6,500 years.
- These shifts correlate with changes in North Atlantic centers of action.
- Evidence of non-stationary westerly-affected regions across mainland Europe.
Conclusions:
- North Atlantic dipole migrations significantly modulate European westerly domains.
- Atlantic Ocean variability may also influence these climate patterns.
- Understanding past westerlies provides insights into future climate change.
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