Extreme precipitation trends associated with tropical cyclones in the core of the North American monsoon

Cavazos, Tereza; Thompson, Cuauhtémoc Turrent; Lettenmaier, Dennis P.

doi:10.1029/2008gl035832

Cited by 47 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(31 reference statements)

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“…It was investigated if the passage of hurricanes was associated with peaks of daily rainfall in the core region during the two extreme years; however, no clear correlation was found (not shown) possibly because the hurricanes were far away from the impact range (>500 km from the core region). Cavazos et al () documented that the seasonal contribution of extreme daily precipitation (>95th percentile) in the core monsoon region during the wet summer of 1990 was large, and entirely produced by non‐tropical cyclone systems. The rainy season of 1990 was characterized by frequent showers and heavy daily precipitation during the entire monsoon season, while in 2005 most of the rain events occurred from late July to mid‐September.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

CORDEX‐NA: factors inducing dry/wet years on the North American Monsoon region

Cerezo‐Mota

Cavazos

Arritt

et al. 2015

Intl Journal of Climatology

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The output of four regional climate models (RCMs) from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX)-North America (NA) region was analysed for the 1990-2008 period, with particular interest on the mechanisms associated with wet and dry years over the North American Monsoon (NAM) core region. All RCMs (RCA3.5, HadGEM3-RA, REMO, and RegCM4) were forced by the ERA-Interim reanalysis. Model precipitation was compared against several observational gridded data sets at different time scales. Most RCMs capture well the annual cycle of precipitation and outperform ERA-Interim, which is drier than the observations. RCMs underestimate (overestimate) the precipitation over the coastal plains (mountains) and have some problems to reproduce the interannual variability of the monsoon. To further investigate this, two extreme summers that showed the largest consistency among observations and RCMs were chosen: one wet (1990) and one dry (2005). The impact of the passage of tropical cyclones, the size of the Western Hemisphere Warm Pool (WHWP), the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) position, and the initial intensity of the land-sea thermal contrast (LSTC) were analysed. During the wet year, the LSTC was stronger than the 2005 dry monsoon season and there were a larger number of hurricanes near the Gulf of California, the WHWP was more extended, and the ITCZ was located in a more northerly position than in 2005. All these processes contributed to a wetter NAM season. During the dry year, the LSTC was weaker, with a later onset, probably due to a previous very wet winter. The inverse precipitation relationship between winter and summer in the monsoon region was well captured by most of the RCMs. RegCM4 showed the largest biases and HadGEM3-RA the smallest ones. tropical cyclones, Rossby waves, and the Madden-Julian oscillation (e.g.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

CORDEX‐NA: factors inducing dry/wet years on the North American Monsoon region

Cerezo‐Mota

Cavazos

Arritt

et al. 2015

Intl Journal of Climatology

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“…In Mexico for example, only few studies have focused on temperature (e.g., Peralta-Hernández et al, 2009;Gutiérrez-Ruacho et al, 2010;García-Cueto et al, 2013;López-Díaz et al, 2013;Cruz-Rico et al, 2015; Alvarez-Olguin and Escalante-Sandoval, 2017) and precipitation (Cavazos et al, 2008;Arriaga-Ramirez and Cavazos, 2010;Martinez-Lopez et al, 2018) trends using station data in some regions of the country. Increases of extreme summer precipitation in the North American monsoon (NAM) region have been associated with the intensification of tropical cyclones (Cavazos et al, 2008;Arriaga-Ramirez and Cavazos, 2010) and the negative phase of the AMO (Curtis, 2008). Englehart and Douglas (2005) and Pavía et al (2009) analysed station data in all Mexico and found a positive temperature trend in the 1970-2000 period, with maximum surface temperature having a stronger positive trend than the minimum temperature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climatic trends and regional climate models intercomparison over the CORDEX‐CAM (Central America, Caribbean, and Mexico) domain

Cavazos

Luna‐Niño

Cerezo‐Mota

et al. 2019

Intl Journal of Climatology

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An intercomparison of three regional climate models (RCMs) (PRECIS‐HadRM3P, RCA4, and RegCM4) was performed over the Coordinated Regional Dynamical Experiment (CORDEX)—Central America, Caribbean, and Mexico (CAM) domain to determine their ability to reproduce observed temperature and precipitation trends during 1980–2010. Particular emphasis was given to the North American monsoon (NAM) and the mid‐summer drought (MSD) regions. The three RCMs show negative (positive) temperature (precipitation) biases over the mountains, where observations have more problems due to poor data coverage. Observations from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) and ERA‐Interim show a generalized warming over the domain. The most significant warming trend (≥0.34°C/decade) is observed in the NAM, which is moderately captured by the three RCMs, but with less intensity; each decade from 1970 to 2016 has become warmer than the previous ones, especially during the summer (mean and extremes); this warming appears partially related to the positive Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (+AMO). CRU, GPCP, and CHIRPS show significant decreases of precipitation (less than −15%/decade) in parts of the southwest United States and northwestern Mexico, including the NAM, and a positive trend (5–10%/decade) in June–September in eastern Mexico, the MSD region, and northern South America, but longer trends (1950–2017) are not statistically significant. RCMs are able to moderately simulate some of the recent trends, especially in winter. In spite of their mean biases, the RCMs are able to adequately simulate inter‐annual and seasonal variations. Wet (warm) periods in regions affected by the MSD are significantly correlated with the +AMO and La Niña events (+AMO and El Niño). Summer precipitation trends from GPCP show opposite signs to those of CRU and CHIRPS over the Mexican coasts of the southern Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, and Cuba, possibly due to data limitations and differences in grid resolutions.

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“…This has been reported for the southern region of the United States of America and northwestern Mexico (Castro et al, 2001;Cavazos et al, 2008;Cerezo-Mota et al, 2016). The behavior in these patterns of increasing rainfalls has been associated to effects caused by El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and quality phases of PDO for the region (Pavia et al, 2006).…”

Section: Detection Indicesmentioning

confidence: 73%

“…eventos de lluvia intensa en 1 día y 5 días (RX1day y RX5day) (Figura 2b). Esto se ha reportado para la región de sur de USA y el noroeste de México (Castro et al, 2001;Cavazos et al, 2008;Cerezo-Mota et al, 2016). El comportamiento en estos patrones de aumento de lluvias se ha asociado a efectos de El Niño Oscilación del Sur (ENSO) y fases cálidas de PDO para la región (Pavia et al, 2006 (Figure 2b).…”

Section: Detection Indicesunclassified