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Marine climate variability based on weather patterns for a complicated island setting: The New Zealand case
Author(s) -
Rueda Ana,
Cagigal Laura,
Antolínez Jose A. A.,
Albuquerque Joao C.,
Castanedo Sonia,
Coco Giovanni,
Méndez Fernando J.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
international journal of climatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.58
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-0088
pISSN - 0899-8418
DOI - 10.1002/joc.5912
Subject(s) - climatology , storm , storm surge , environmental science , climate change , swell , climatic variability , winter storm , geography , meteorology , oceanography , geology
Understanding marine climate variability is important for coastal planning and marine operations. It is also particularly challenging for complicated settings (e.g., islands) and data‐poor regions. The aim of this work is to establish a relationship between daily synoptic atmospheric patterns, and wave and storm surge conditions around New Zealand waters, based on instrumental and reanalysis data. The daily predictor we developed is able to represent sea and swell wave conditions as well as storm surge variability over different temporal scales. However, when climate variability is analysed on a longer temporal period, based on the 20th century reanalysis, large inhomogeneities are found. This highlights the dangers related to assessing climate variability, especially in data‐poor regions (such as New Zealand), where inhomogeneities could be interpreted as actual changes.