Review article. Studying climate effects on ecology through the use of climate indices: the North Atlantic Oscillation, El Nio Southern Oscillation and beyond
Published in
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, October 2003
Whereas the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) affects weather and climate variability worldwide, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) represents the dominant climate pattern in the North Atlantic region. Both climate systems have been demonstrated to considerably influence ecological processes. Several other large-scale climate patterns also exist. Although less well known outside the field of climatology, these patterns are also likely to be of ecological interest. We provide an overview of these climate patterns within the context of the ecological effects of climate variability. The application of climate indices by definition reduces complex space and time variability into simple measures, 'packages of weather'. The disadvantages of using global climate indices are all related to the fact that another level of problems are added to the ecology-climate interface, namely the link between global climate indices and local climate. We identify issues related to: (i) spatial variation; (ii) seasonality; (iii) non-stationarity; (iv) nonlinearity; and (v) lack of correlation in the relationship between global and local climate. The main advantages of using global climate indices are: (i) biological effects may be related more strongly to global indices than to any single local climate variable; (ii) it helps to avoid problems of model selection; (iii) it opens the possibility for ecologists to make predictions; and (iv) they are typically readily available on Internet.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 01 January 2024.
All research outputs
#7,599,265
of 34,447,360 outputs
Outputs from Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
#7,471
of 12,421 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#19,496
of 81,018 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
#30
of 71 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,447,360 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 73rd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 12,421 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 43.3. This one is in the 38th percentile – i.e., 38% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 81,018 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 61% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 71 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 52% of its contemporaries.
