Seasonal Climate Transitions in New England

For continental climates at northern latitudes, there are important climate transitions, linked with the winter, spring, summer and fall seasons, which illustrate the links between land-surface, biosphere, atmosphere, clouds and radiation. Several processes that are important to climate change can be seen in these local seasonal climate transitions: water vapour feedback in all seasons, snow-ice albedo feedback in winter and evaporation-precipitation feedback in summer. Illustrations here from Vermont in northern New England suggest that, as the global climate system warms, the trends in the fall, winter and spring transitions will directly reflect the shrinking of the winter cold season.

Note: UK journal - British spelling! Under Special Climate topics you will find a version with US spelling!

A recording of a presentation of this paper at the 2011 annual meeting of the AMS in Seattle is available at
http://ams.confex.com/ams/91Annual/flvgateway.cgi/id/17191?recordingid=17191

Related paper: Vermont Climate Change Indicators

Related paper: Climate Change in Vermont

Related paper: Climate Change: Taking a local perspective to the global level

Related paper: Coupling of winter climate transitions to snow and clouds over the Prairies

Related Topics

• Climate,
• Clouds,
• Land-surface,
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