Evaluation of climate continentality

The paper considers climate continentality from points of view of both temperature and precipitation. Main indices developed for climate continentality are present and compared and a suggestion of new index is made. The newly suggested index is based on daily means of temperature and considers influence of latitude on temperature distribution on the Earth. Linear regression was chosen as a function which describes the best the dependence of annual mean temperature on latitude. All indices are applied to the area of Europe and they are illustrated in maps created in ArcGIS and then evaluated. Evaluation is focused on newly suggested index. Trend of climate continentality from 1961 up to 2004 at station Prague - Clementinum is considered from points of view of all indices used in this paper. No significant trend is obvious but changes in a sub periods are noticeable