Tracking westerly wind directions over Europe since the middle Holocene

Hsun Ming Hu*, Valerie Trouet, Christoph Spötl, Hsien Chen Tsai, Wei Yi Chien, Wen Hui Sung, Véronique Michel, Jin Yi Yu, Patricia Valensi, Xiuyang Jiang, Fucai Duan, Yongjin Wang, Horng Sheng Mii, Yu Min Chou, Mahjoor Ahmad Lone, Chung Che Wu, Elisabetta Starnini, Marta Zunino, Takaaki K. Watanabe, Tsuyoshi WatanabeHuang Hsiung Hsu, G. W.K. Moore, Giovanni Zanchetta, Carlos Pérez-Mejías, Shih Yu Lee*, Chuan Chou Shen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The variability of the northern westerlies has been considered as one of the key elements for modern and past climate evolution. Their multiscale behavior and underlying control mechanisms, however, are incompletely understood, owing to the complex dynamics of Atlantic sea-level pressures. Here, we present a multi-annually resolved record of the westerly drift over the past 6,500 years from northern Italy. In combination with more than 20 other westerly-sensitive records, our results depict the non-stationary westerly-affected regions over mainland Europe on multi-decadal to multi-centennial time scales, showing that the direction of the westerlies has changed with respect to the migrations of the North Atlantic centers of action since the middle Holocene. Our findings suggest the crucial role of the migrations of the North Atlantic dipole in modulating the westerly-affected domain over Europe, possibly modulated by Atlantic Ocean variability.

Original languageEnglish
Article number7866
JournalNature Communications
Volume13
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022 Dec

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Chemistry
  • General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Physics and Astronomy

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