21), and the NEP was a permafrost environment (cold and arid) (
22). Figures 2 and 3 suggest that, combined, the FIS and NEP generated a blocking system, a combination of a topographic barrier and a high-pressure region (FIS-NEP
HP), which directed storm tracks along the western Atlantic margin (WAM; the British Isles, France, and the Iberian Peninsula) and into the Mediterranean. Following a circulation weather type approach, the YD precipitation pattern most closely resembles the modern Scandinavian (m-SCAND) circulation, although here shifted further south and formed under different boundary conditions. m-SCAND, predominantly a winter circulation (
23), generates increased storm tracks along the WAM during October to March (