Scottish Ocean Climate Status Report 2000 — 2001

(2003) Scottish Ocean Climate Status Report 2000 — 2001. Technical Report. Fisheries Research Service, Aberdeen, UK.

There is a more recent version of this eprint available. Click here to view it.

Full text available as:

Preview

PDF - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader 1334 Kb

Official URL: http://www.frs-scotland.gov.uk

Summary

This report summarises the weather and the condition of coastal, offshore and oceanic waters experienced around Scotland for the years 2000 and 2001. • It describes these two years and puts them in context with the last three decades and the past century. • The weather in Scotland during 2000 was warmer than average. The early part of the year was very warm and unusually wet and the summer was drier than average. • On the whole, the weather in Scotland during 2001 was fairly close to average. However, October brought extremely warm air temperatures to most areas of Scotland. • Over the northern North Sea, the long-term trend is one of warming air temperatures and stronger winds. However, air temperatures and wind speeds decreased over the period 2000 and 2001. • In coastal waters, temperatures on the west coast were warmer than average, whilst temperatures on the east coast were cooler than average. At all sites, the winter temperatures were lower than during 1998 and 1999. • Data from an inshore ecosystem monitoring site on the north-east coast of Scotland has been presented. There is not yet enough data at this location to deduce long-term trends. However, these data show that the waters have been warming and freshening over the last 5 years. • Winter temperature at fishing grounds in the North Sea show a continuation of the general warming trend seen in coastal waters. • In the southern North Sea fishing grounds, there appears to be a trend of decreasing salinity in the winter. • Over the eastern North Atlantic there has been a general warming trend of between 0.5˚C and 1˚C per decade during the last 20 years. • Global climate models indicate that this warming trend will continue during the next 20 years, but at a lesser rate of between 0.2˚C and 0.5˚C per decade.warming at a rate of around 0.5°C per decade.

Library Staff Only: edit this record