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GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L03819, doi:10.1029/2006GL028559, 2007

An unexpected pattern of distinct weekly periodicities in climatological variables in Germany

Dominique Bäumer

Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe / Universität Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany


Bernhard Vogel

Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe / Universität Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany


Abstract

Statistical analyses of data from 12 German meteorological stations meeting WMO standards in the period 1991–2005 are presented. These stations represent different local climate conditions in terms of both meteorology and pollution situation. For the average over data of all stations, we identified significant weekly periodicities in many variables such as temperature, daily temperature range, sunshine duration, cloud amount, precipitation, and precipitation frequency. Not only data of stations situated in congested urban areas, but also data of remote stations as e.g. on Mount Zugspitze 2960 m above sea level in the Alps showed significant in-phase weekly cycles. These weekly periodicities cannot be explained completely by local pollution effects or local heat emissions. We tend towards the hypothesis that the anthropogenic weekly emission cycle and the subsequent aerosol cycle interact with the atmospheric dynamics on a larger scale which leads to a forcing of a naturally existing 7-day period among the spectrum of atmospheric periods.

Received 24 October 2006; accepted 16 January 2007; published 15 February 2007.

Keywords: weekly cycle; indirect aerosol effect; climate change.

Index Terms: 0345 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Pollution: urban and regional (0305, 0478, 4251); 0360 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Radiation: transmission and scattering; 3305 Atmospheric Processes: Climate change and variability (1616, 1635, 3309, 4215, 4513); 3309 Atmospheric Processes: Climatology (1616, 1620, 3305, 4215, 8408); 3311 Atmospheric Processes: Clouds and aerosols.

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Citation: Bäumer, D., and B. Vogel (2007), An unexpected pattern of distinct weekly periodicities in climatological variables in Germany, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L03819, doi:10.1029/2006GL028559.