BUT!Hot of f the press from the EGU meeting Nice-

http://www.cosis.net/members/meeting...51f17ad555e924
THE QBO LINK TO EUROPEAN WINTER WEATHER
F. A. Parton (1), M. A. Saunders (1)
(1) University College London
The quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) is the most predictable interannual climate fluc-tuation
on the planet. It is a quasiperiodic variation in the direction of the zonal flow in
the equatorial stratosphere with a period of ? 28 months. A recent study has suggested
a link between the QBO and northern hemisphere wintertime weather in January. We
extend this work and show persuasive evidence for a significant link between the QBO
and (1) the winter (December-January-February) Arctic Oscillation, (2) various winter
NAO indices and (3) the winter central England temperature. Power spectral analysis
of winter data between 1874 and 1999 (1899 to 2002 for the Arctic Oscillation) shows
that each of the above signals has a significant (p 0.05) power peak at a period of
either 2.3 or 2.4 years; this corresponding to the QBO mean period. The QBO link to
European winter temperature appears spatially and temporally variable, with regions
of significant association showing a southward shift in latitude from Scandinavia to
central Europe as the winter progresses from December to February. We explore the
hypothesis that the QBO is exerting a forcing effect on European winter weather by us-ing
lead/lag correlation analyses and wind data at different heights in the stratosphere
and troposphere.


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regards,
david
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