Recent Climate Variability around the Kerguelen Islands (Southern Ocean) Seen through Weather Regimes

Daily weather regimes are defined around the Kerguelen Islands (Southern Ocean) on the basis of daily 500-hPa geopotential height anomalies derived from the ERA5 ensemble reanalysis over the period 1979-2018. Ten regimes are retained as significant. Their occurrences are highly consistent across reanalysis ensemble members. Regimes show weak seasonality and nonsignificant long-term trends in their occurrences. Their sequences are usually short (1-3 days), with extreme persistence values above 10 days. Seasonal regime frequency is mostly driven by the phase of the southern annular mode over Antarctica, midlatitude dynamics over the Southern Ocean such as the Pacific-South American mode, and, to a lesser extent, tropical variability, with significant but weaker relationships with El Nino-Southern Oscillation. At the local scale over the Kerguelen Islands, regimes have a strong influence on measured atmospheric and oceanic variables, including minimum and maximum air temperature, mostly driven by horizontal advections, seawater temperature recorded 5 m below the surface, wind speed, and sea level pressure. Relationships are weaker for precipitation amounts. Regimes also modify regional contrasts between observational sites in Kerguelen, highlighting strong exposure contrasts. The regimes allow us to improve our understanding of weather and climate variability and interactions in this region; they will be used in future work to assess past and projected long-term circulation changes in the southern midlatitudes.

Automated summary

Daily weather regimes around the Kerguelen Islands are significantly influenced by climate patterns and regional dynamics, with strong impacts on local atmospheric and oceanic variables but weaker effects on precipitation amounts.