85th AMS Annual Meeting

Thursday, 13 January 2005
Decadal shifts in the relationship among surface temperature records of the weather stations in western sub-Arctic
Muyin Wang, JISAO/Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA; and J. E. Overland
Surface temperature time series from four coastal stations: Barrow, Nome, St. Paul, and Kodiak, which represent the climate variability in the coastal regions of Beaufort Sea, Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, respectively, are selected in current study. The co-variance between the north and south stations are not stable during the last century. We found changing relationship between stations based on 88 years (1916-2003) monthly and seasonal records by performing running correlations between stations. For example, in the winter season, Barrow and St. Paul were positive correlated during the 1930s, and again after 1970s. Between the two periods, very weak correlations are found. In spring, the co-variability between north and south stations are more stable after 1940s. The relationship among other stations during other seasons has more variability. A wavelet filter is applied to the time series, which show that the correlations are strongest on decadal scale.

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