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Mathematics

Regime change in meteorology

Nature volume 422, pages 571–572 (2003)Cite this article

Sudden transitions between large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns — kinds of 'punctuated equilibria' — have a deterministic component that can be exploited to identify preferred dynamic cycles.

Weather is notoriously unpredictable. But there are many kinds of prediction, and it is possible to make scientific predictions about weather without predicting the weather. A case in point is the common occurrence of 'blocked' patterns of weather, in which the atmosphere remains in much the same state for a week or more, before suddenly switching to another long-lived pattern. In a thesis just completed, and in an earlier paper, Daan Cromellin1,2 shows how established work in theoretical mathematics can be brought to bear on these phenomena.

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References

  1. Cromellin, D. Nonlinear Dynamics of Atmospheric Regime Transitions. Thesis, Univ. Utrecht (2003).

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  2. Cromellin, D. J. Atmos. Sci. 59, 1533–1549 (2002).

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  3. Palmer, T. N. J. Clim. 12, 575–591 (1999).

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  1. the Mathematics Institute, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK

    Ian Stewart

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  1. Ian Stewart
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Correspondence to Ian Stewart.

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Stewart, I. Regime change in meteorology. Nature 422, 571–572 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/422571a

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/422571a

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