Spuriously induced precipitation trends in the southeast United States

Allard, Jason; Keim, Barry D.; Chassereau, Jessica E.; Sathiaraj, David

doi:10.1007/s00704-008-0021-9

Cited by 12 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…The U.S. National Research Council (NRC 1998), citing these and other challenges (Karl et al 1995;Goodison et al 1998) and in alignment with more recent findings (Fiebrich and Crawford 2009;Hubbard et al 2004;Allard et al 2009;Daly et al 2007), identified the need for a network that was specifically designed to monitor climate and support climate observation efforts in the United States. Drawing upon the successful technological innovations that have helped fuel widespread adoption of automated networks for consistency (Fiebrich 2009;Fiebrich and Crawford 2009) and redundant (three sensors) measurement techniques that improve data quality and continuity (Karl et al 1995), NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) deployed an automated climate observation network named the U.S.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…In the United States, the Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) network has collected many decades of manual observations from thousands of stations. While COOP was originally designed to provide daily data to agricultural communities (National Research Council 1998;Daly et al 2007;Fiebrich and Crawford 2009), it has since evolved into the backbone of the U.S. climatology dataset and is widely used in national (Melillo et al 2014;Karl et al 2009), regional (Allard et al 2009), and local (Diem and Mote 2005) climate assessments. Observations of temperature and precipitation from the COOP network are taken once daily from naturally ventilated temperature shields and unshielded precipitation gauges, which can introduce systematic biases based on prevailing meteorological conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Observational Perspectives from U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) and Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) Network: Temperature and Precipitation Comparison

Leeper

Rennie

Palecki

2015

Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology

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The U.S. Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) network was formed in the early 1890s to provide daily observations of temperature and precipitation. However, manual observations from naturally aspirated temperature sensors and unshielded precipitation gauges often led to uncertainties in atmospheric measurements. Advancements in observational technology (ventilated temperature sensors, well-shielded precipitation gauges) and measurement techniques (automation and redundant sensors), which improve observation quality, were adopted by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) into the establishment of the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN). USCRN was designed to provide high-quality and continuous observations to monitor long-term temperature and precipitation trends, and to provide an independent reference to compare to other networks. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how diverse technological and operational choices between the USCRN and COOP programs impact temperature and precipitation observations. Naturally aspirated COOP sensors generally had warmer (10.488C) daily maximum and cooler (20.368C) minimum temperatures than USCRN, with considerable variability among stations. For precipitation, COOP reported slightly more precipitation overall (1.5%) with network differences varying seasonally. COOP gauges were sensitive to wind biases (no shielding), which are enhanced over winter when COOP observed (10.7%) less precipitation than USCRN. Conversely, wetting factor and gauge evaporation, which dominate in summer, were sources of bias for USCRN, leading to wetter COOP observations over warmer months. Inconsistencies in COOP observations (e.g., multiday observations, time shifts, recording errors) complicated network comparisons and led to unique bias profiles that evolved over time with changes in instrumentation and primary observer.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observational Perspectives from U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) and Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) Network: Temperature and Precipitation Comparison

Leeper

Rennie

Palecki

2015

Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology

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“…The change in methodology creates issues for both periods. For example, the direct averaging of values for the 1931-2011 period can lead to biases when a division is undersampled or varies greatly in topography (Keim et al 2003(Keim et al , 2005Allard et al 2009). Our study area has relatively minimal elevation change to cause an extreme bias in our data with the exception of western North Carolina.…”

Section: A Quantifying Droughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tropical Cyclones and Drought Amelioration in the Gulf and Southeastern Coastal United States

et al. 2013

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Precipitation from land-falling tropical cyclones (TCs) has a significant hydroclimatic influence in the southeastern United States, particularly during drought years. The frequency with which TCs ended drought conditions was examined for southeastern coastal states from Texas to North Carolina during 1895-2011. The region was divided into the Gulf Coast states (GCS) and the southeastern Atlantic coast states (ACS). The spatiotemporal patterns of tropical cyclone drought busters (TCDBs) were analyzed. Larger-scale ocean-atmosphere influences on TCDBs were examined using chi-squared analysis. The ACS experienced TCDBs more frequently and farther inland compared to the GCS. The number of TCDBs has significantly increased with time in the ACS. TCDBs numbers in the GCS did not exhibit significant increases, but the area alleviated of drought conditions increased significantly in the last 117 years. The dominant larger-scale oceanatmosphere forcing of TCDBs was a combination of a warm Atlantic Ocean ABSTRACTPrecipitation from land-falling tropical cyclones (TCs) has a significant hydroclimatic influence in the southeastern United States, particularly during drought years. The frequency with which TCs ended drought conditions was examined for southeastern coastal states from Texas to North Carolina during 1895-2011. The region was divided into the Gulf Coast states (GCS) and the southeastern Atlantic coast states (ACS). The spatiotemporal patterns of tropical cyclone drought busters (TCDBs) were analyzed. Larger-scale oceanatmosphere influences on TCDBs were examined using chi-squared analysis. The ACS experienced TCDBs more frequently and farther inland compared to the GCS. The number of TCDBs has significantly increased with time in the ACS. TCDBs numbers in the GCS did not exhibit significant increases, but the area alleviated of drought conditions increased significantly in the last 117 years. The dominant larger-scale ocean-atmosphere forcing of TCDBs was a combination of a warm Atlantic Ocean [positive Atlantic multidecadal oscillation index (AMO1)] and weak westerlies [negative North Atlantic Oscillation index (NAO2)]. AMO1 leads to an increase in the number of TCs throughout the North Atlantic basin, and NAO2 increases the likelihood of TC landfall by controlling the steering of TCs toward the southeastern United States.

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“…Climatological average values of annual precipitation at different stations within a climate division can easily vary by a factor of 5 or more. In climate divisions with spatially inhomogeneous precipitation climates, changes in the configuration of stations can cause spurious long-term precipitation trends and spurious short-term precipitation variations (Keim et al 2005;Allard et al 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Keim et al (2005) and Allard et al (2008) used U.S. Historical Climate Network (USHCN) stations with continuous records in constructing alternative climate division time series for New England and the southeastern United States, respectively.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Homogenized Climate Division Precipitation Dataset for Analysis of Climate Variability and Climate Change

McRoberts¹,

Nielsen‐Gammon²

2011

Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology

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A new homogeneous climate division monthly precipitation dataset [based on full network estimated precipitation (FNEP)] was created as an alternative to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) climate division dataset. These alternative climate division monthly precipitation values were estimated using an equal-weighted average of Cooperative Observer Program stations that contained serially complete time series. Missing station observations were estimated by a procedure that was optimized through testing on U.S. Historical Climate Network stations. Inhomogeneities in the NCDC dataset arise from two principal causes. The pre-1931 estimation of NCDC climate division monthly precipitation from statewide averages led to a significant time series discontinuity in several climate divisions. From 1931 to the present, NCDC climate division averages have been calculated from a subset of available station data within each climate division, and temporal changes in the location of available stations have caused artificial changes in the time series. The FNEP climate division dataset is recommended over the NCDC dataset for studies involving climate trends or long-term climate variability. According to the FNEP data, the 1895-2009 linear precipitation trend is positive across most of the United States, and trends exceed 10% per century across the southern plains and the Corn Belt. Remaining inhomogeneities from changes in gauge technology and station location may be responsible for an artificial trend of 1%-3% per century.

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Spuriously induced precipitation trends in the southeast United States

Cited by 12 publications

References 10 publications

Observational Perspectives from U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) and Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) Network: Temperature and Precipitation Comparison

Observational Perspectives from U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) and Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) Network: Temperature and Precipitation Comparison

Tropical Cyclones and Drought Amelioration in the Gulf and Southeastern Coastal United States

A New Homogenized Climate Division Precipitation Dataset for Analysis of Climate Variability and Climate Change

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