Abstract
The Center for Ocean–Land–Atmosphere Studies Atmospheric General Circulation Model is used to investigate the role of global boundary conditions of sea surface temperature (SST) in the establishment and maintenance of the European heat wave of 2003 summer. It is found that the global SST anomalies can explain many major features of the European heat wave during the summer of 2003. A further experiment has investigated the role of SST outside the Mediterranean area. This supplements the results of a previous study where the role of warm Mediterranean SST was analyzed. The results suggest that the SST anomalies had an additional effect of reducing the baroclinicity in the European area reinforcing the blocking circulation and helping to create ideal conditions for the establishment of the heat wave.
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Acknowledgments
The computations were performed on the computing facilities of the Center for Ocean–Land Atmosphere Studies (COLA) in Maryland and the UCAR-NCAR in Colorado (USA). We would like to thank O. Reale for his precious help in this research and J. Kinter and M. Fennessy for discussions and comments on this study. Thanks also to the Climate Dynamics department at George Mason University and COLA for providing access to their data set. This research was supported by the Research grant FISR-CMCC (Fondo Integrativo Speciale per la Ricerca of the Centro Euro-Mediterraneo per i Cambiamenti Climatici), the National Science Foundation (ATM0332910, ATM0830062, ATM0830068), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NNG04GG46G, NNX09AN50G), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NA04OAR4310034, NA09OAR4310058).
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Feudale, L., Shukla, J. Influence of sea surface temperature on the European heat wave of 2003 summer. Part II: a modeling study. Clim Dyn 36, 1705–1715 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-010-0789-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-010-0789-z