Abstract
Abstract
Natural variability plays a large role in local climate that makes it difficult to specify the causes of the weakening of the annual cycle of surface air temperature in the central part of the Russian Plain. This study is to check whether this could be caused by the global warming by using the outputs of climate models. For this purpose, the changes in monthly surface air temperature simulated for the period from 1950 to 2010 were used to calculate the coefficients of correlation between the annual mean of the air temperature and the amplitude of its annual cycle. The negative correlation demonstrated by some models allows us to attribute, at least with a low confidence, the weakening of the annual temperature cycle in the central part of the Russian Plain to the global warming. The model disagreement on the sign of the correlation calls for the study of model ability to reproduce the changes in zonal and meridional atmospheric circulation over the eastern part of the European continent.