Enhanced lifetime of atmospheric circulation types over Europe: fact or fiction?

We analyse the lifetimes (persistence) of circulation types using 23 classifications (of which 18 are objective and 5 subjective) in the period 1957–2002 over Europe and its subregions. The objective catalogues are developed on the same gridded climatic data (ECMWF ERA-40 reanalysis) but differ in the classification method used and in the number of synoptic types. Significant seasonal trends in the lifetime (both positive and negative) are fairly scarce and are present in all seasons in the manual catalogues only. In the subjective Hess—Brezowsky catalogue, there is an abrupt shift toward higher persistence in 1986, whereas in the Hungarian manual catalogue, a smaller but significant negative shift took place in the same year. These statistical inconsistencies probably result from inhomogeneities in the subjective catalogues. Our results suggest that the increase in the persistence of circulation types reported recently in several papers for the Hess—Brezowsky catalogue is an artefact rather than a real feature.