Decadal predictability of soil water, vegetation, and wildfire frequency over North America

Chikamoto, Yoshimitsu; Timmermann, Axel; Stevenson, Samantha; DiNezio, Pedro; Langford, Sally

doi:10.1007/s00382-015-2469-5

Cited by 30 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 85 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The atmospheric model was run at T31 resolution, which corresponds to 3.75° by 3.75° horizontal resolution, with 26 vertical levels, while the ocean horizontal resolution is 3° by 3° with 60 vertical levels. This low-resolution version is ideal for performing computationally efficient long equilibrium runs and performs well when compared to higher resolution versions (Shields et al 2012;Chikamoto et al 2015;Stevenson et al 2015). Figure 3 compares tropical annual mean precipitation and seasonality of precipitation of a pre-industrial control run with CESM1.0.3 against the CPC Merged Analysis of Precipitation (CMAP) NCEP Reanalysis-enhanced monthly climatology (Xie and Arkin 1997).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Mechanisms rectifying the annual mean response of tropical Atlantic rainfall to precessional forcing

Tigchelaar

Timmermann

2015

Clim Dyn

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fig. 3 Annual mean precipitation (top) and seasonality of precipitation (maximum minus minimum of monthly climatology; bottom) for CMAP monthly climatology (enhanced version, left;Xie and Arkin 1997) and CESM1.0.3 preindustrial control run (right; Chikamoto et al 2015) 3 Results…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanisms rectifying the annual mean response of tropical Atlantic rainfall to precessional forcing

Tigchelaar

Timmermann

2015

Clim Dyn

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the low-frequency range, atmospheric variability is modulated by more predictable climate phenomena such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) 8 , the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) 9 , the Atlantic/Pacific SST contrast 10, 11 , and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation 12, 13 . The ratio of internally generated atmospheric variability and SST-forced variability thus limits the potential prediction horizon of monthly to seasonally averaged rainfall changes to less than 1 year 14–16 . However, there are many land systems (e.g., soils, water reservoirs, vegetation, and perennial snowpack) that effectively filter out the high-frequency rainfall variability and therefore exhibit longer persistence as a result of natural time integration of atmospheric signals 17, 18 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-year predictability of climate, drought, and wildfire in southwestern North America

Chikamoto

Timmermann

Widlansky

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Past severe droughts over North America have led to massive water shortages and increases in wildfire frequency. Triggering sources for multi-year droughts in this region include randomly occurring atmospheric blocking patterns, ocean impacts on atmospheric circulation, and climate’s response to anthropogenic radiative forcings. A combination of these sources translates into a difficulty to predict the onset and length of such droughts on multi-year timescales. Here we present results from a new multi-year dynamical prediction system that exhibits a high degree of skill in forecasting wildfire probabilities and drought for 10–23 and 10–45 months lead time, which extends far beyond the current seasonal prediction activities for southwestern North America. Using a state-of-the-art earth system model along with 3-dimensional ocean data assimilation and by prescribing the external radiative forcings, this system simulates the observed low-frequency variability of precipitation, soil water, and wildfire probabilities in close agreement with observational records and reanalysis data. The underlying source of multi-year predictability can be traced back to variations of the Atlantic/Pacific sea surface temperature gradient, external radiative forcings, and the low-pass filtering characteristics of soils.

show abstract

“…However, SST forcing does not necessarily dominate; the amount of precipitation variance explained by ENSO is relatively small (10%-20%), and the precise amount of precipitation associated with ENSO may change from event to event [as noted by Kiladis and Diaz (1989); Cayan and Webb (1992); McCabe and Dettinger (1999); Gershunov and Barnett (1998);Cayan et al (2010); and many others] as a result of atmospheric noise. It is the ability to characterize this background level of drought variability that will eventually determine the potential predictability of megadroughts, their onset, duration, and termination (Chikamoto et al 2015). It is the ability to characterize this background level of drought variability that will eventually determine the potential predictability of megadroughts, their onset, duration, and termination (Chikamoto et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stochastically Generated North American Megadroughts

et al. 2015

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The importance of interannual-to-decadal sea surface temperature (SST) influences on drought in the United States is examined using a suite of simulations conducted with the T3133 resolution version of the NCAR Community Earth System Model (CESM1.0.3). The model captures tropical Pacific teleconnections to North American precipitation reasonably well, although orographic features are somewhat enhanced at higher resolution. The contribution of SST anomalies is isolated by comparing two idealized, 1000-yr CESM1.0.3 experiments: a fully coupled control and an atmosphere-only (CAM4) run forced with the SST climatology from the control. Droughts are identified using the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), which is computed over four U.S. regions from the CESM1.0.3 experiments and compared with the North American Drought Atlas (NADA). The CESM1.0.3 reproduces the persistence of NADA droughts quite well, although the model underestimates drought severity. Within the CESM1.0.3 framework, SST forcing does not significantly affect drought intensity or frequency of occurrence, even for very persistent ''megadroughts'' of 15 yr or more in length. In both the CESM1.0.3 and NADA, with the exception of the Southeast United States, droughts in all regions have intensities, persistence lengths, and occurrence frequencies statistically consistent with a red noise null hypothesis. This implies that SST forcing is not the dominant factor in generating drought and therefore that many decadal megadroughts are caused by a combination of internal atmospheric variability and coupling with the land surface, with SST anomalies playing only a secondary role.

show abstract

Decadal predictability of soil water, vegetation, and wildfire frequency over North America

Cited by 30 publications

References 85 publications

Mechanisms rectifying the annual mean response of tropical Atlantic rainfall to precessional forcing

Mechanisms rectifying the annual mean response of tropical Atlantic rainfall to precessional forcing

Multi-year predictability of climate, drought, and wildfire in southwestern North America

Stochastically Generated North American Megadroughts

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About