Atmospheric circulation and links to surface climate

Atmospheric circulation fundamentally affects the surface climate and is therefore a key factor in connection with the ongoing changes in the Earth’s climate system, including the occurrence of extreme and dangerous phenomena (such as heat waves, droughts, floods, etc.).

Our research focuses on the study of atmospheric circulation (teleconnections, modes of low-frequency variability, circulation types), its long-term changes, and influence on surface climatic elements. We test various methods for describing the structure of circulation data, especially with respect to capturing variability associated with less significant modes.

An important topic of our research is the links between circulation and the surface climate in current climate models, which reveals models’ deficiencies in reproducing physical processes associated with advection of air masses, radiation, or land surface properties. The latest available climate model simulations, especially from the CORDEX activity, are examined for this purpose. We also compare individual atmospheric reanalyses in terms of their ability to reproduce modes of variability/circulation types and their relationships to surface climatic elements, and study the extent to which the trends in surface variables are related to long-term changes in atmospheric circulation.