Open AccessOn the relationship between the Mediterranean Oscillation and winter precipitation in the Southern Levant
Author(s) -
Törnros Tobias
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
atmospheric science letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.951
H-Index - 45
ISSN - 1530-261X
DOI - 10.1002/asl2.450
Subject(s) - empirical orthogonal functions , precipitation , climatology , mediterranean climate , north atlantic oscillation , mediterranean basin , series (stratigraphy) , environmental science , oscillation (cell signaling) , atmospheric sciences , geography , geology , meteorology , chemistry , biochemistry , paleontology , archaeology
Empirical Orthogonal Function ( EOF ) analysis was applied to 25 homogenous precipitation series in the Southern Levant covering the years 1960–1993. The EOF ‐1 explained 60–71% of variance and exhibited a significant correlation with a particular Mediterranean Oscillation Index ( MOI ) in December–February. It is shown that winter precipitation is associated with positive MOI phases and Cyprus lows. By fitting gamma distributions to monthly precipitation; it could furthermore be shown that during negative MOI phases, the probability of above average winter precipitation is 22%. During positive MOI phases, the corresponding probability is much higher, at around 59% .