Improved Reconstruction of Global Precipitation since 1900

Abstract

An improved land-ocean global monthly precipitation anomaly reconstruction is developed for the period beginning in 1900. Reconstructions use the available historical data and statistics developed from the modern satellite-sampled period to analyze variations over the historical presatellite period. This paper documents the latest in a series of precipitation reconstructions developed by the authors. Although the reconstruction principle is still the minimization of mean-squared error, this latest reconstruction includes the following three major improvements over previous reconstructions: (i) an improved method that first produces an annual first guess, which is then adjusted using a monthly increment analysis; (ii) improved use of oceanic observations in the annual first guess using a canonical correlation analysis; and (iii) reinjection of gauge data where those data are available. These improvements allow more confident analyses and evaluations of global precipitation variations over the reconstruction period. Quantitative error estimates for the reconstruction are being developed and will be documented in a later paper.

Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon intensified by mega-El Niño/southern oscillation and Atlantic multidecadal oscillation

“…To examine the long-term variability of NHSM, we also use a historical reconstructed precipitation dataset (28) and atmospheric winds from the 20th century reanalysis data (29). The AMO index was downloaded from the website (www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/timeseries/AMO/), which was calculated over the North Atlantic (0°-70°N) using the Kaplan SST data.…”

Changes in precipitation recycling over arid regions in the Northern Hemisphere

“…Water recycling is a key component in precipitation in arid regions, linking the land surface and the atmosphere (Dominguez and Kumar 2008). Studies (Willett et al 2008;Smith et al 2012) show that atmospheric vapor and precipitation increased over the past 20 years (1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010), but the increasing rate from climate model simulations is lower than the observations (Wentz et al 2007). The change of vapor in the atmosphere will lead to variations of precipitation and water recycling (Eltahir and Bras 1994).…”

Six temperature and precipitation regimes of the contiguous United States between 1895 and 2010: a statistical inference study

“…3c and 4d might be related to the 1970s climate shift over the tropical Pacific owning that the Pacific moisture transport to the western CONUS is via easterly wind in the middle latitude zones. Sea surface temperature (SST) had a sharp shift in the 1976-1977 winter in the eastern Pacific off the coast of western North America from cool to warm (Miller et al 1994;Meehl et al 2009;Smith et al 2012). The northeastern Pacific (30-65°CN, 140-160°W) winter (November-March) sea level pressure (SLP) also had a clear shift from high to low in 1976-1978(Trenberth and Hurrell 1994.…”