Climatology of day-to-day temperature changes in Europe

An important aspect of temperature variability is day-to-day temperature difference. Only a few previous studies have looked into its climatology. It is known that the distribution of day-to-day temperature changes in central Europe is asymmetrical, with large temperature increases prevailing over large decreases in winter, and vice versa in summer. A detailed study into the climatology of day-to-day temperature change and its properties is still missing, however.

This study attempts to fill in this knowledge gap. We present climatology of the mean absolute value of day-to-day temperature changes, its standard deviation, values of extreme quantiles, and skewness for Europe in winter and summer. We examine several datasets, including station data (from ECA&D database), an interpolated gridded dataset (E-OBS), and reanalyses (NCEP-NCAR, JRA55, and 20CR). The comparison of various types of datasets allows us to identify their specific behaviour, pointing to potential errors and biases.

This contribution is a part of our efforts to describe and understand long-term changes in short-term (intraseasonal) atmospheric variability and their mechanisms.