Running dry: The U.S. Southwest's drift into a drier climate state

Geophysical Research Letters

Volumn 43, Issue 3, 2016, Pages 1272-1279

  Prein, Andreas F ^a   Holland, Gregory J ^a   Rasmussen, Roy M ^a   Clark, Martyn P ^a   Tye, Mari R ^a  

^a NATIONAL CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH   (United States)

Author keywords

extremes; precipitation; U.S. droughts; U.S. Southwest; weather types

Indexed keywords

METEOROLOGY; PRECIPITATION (CHEMICAL); STORMS;

EXTREME EVENTS; EXTREMES; FREQUENCY CHANGES; PRECIPITATION INTENSITY; PRECIPITATION TRENDS; TROPICAL CYCLONE; U.S. SOUTHWEST; WEATHER TYPES;

DROUGHT;

ANTICYCLONE; CLIMATE CONDITIONS; DATA INTERPRETATION; DROUGHT; EXTREME EVENT; PRECIPITATION INTENSITY; REGIONAL CLIMATE; TREND ANALYSIS; TROPICAL CYCLONE; WEATHER;

ATLANTIC OCEAN; CALIFORNIA; MIDWEST; OKLAHOMA [UNITED STATES]; PACIFIC OCEAN; PACIFIC OCEAN (NORTHEAST); UNITED STATES;

EID: 84956854855     PISSN: 00948276     EISSN: 19448007     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/2015GL066727     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. Balling, R. C., and, G. B. Goodrich, (2011), Spatial analysis of variations in precipitation intensity in the USA, Theor. Appl. Climatol., 104 (3-4), 415-421, doi: 10.1007/s00704-010-0353-0.
2. Bukovsky, M., (2012), Masks for the Bukovsky regionalization of North America, Regional Integrated Sciences Collective, Tech. Rep., Natl. Cent. for Atmos. Res., Boulder, Colo.
3. Cayan, D. R., T. Das, D. W. Pierce, T. P. Barnett, M. Tyree, and, A. Gershunov, (2010), Future dryness in the southwest US and the hydrology of the early 21st century drought, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 107 (50), 21,271-21,276, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0912391107.
4. Comrie, A. C., (1996), An all-season synoptic climatology of air pollution in the U.S.-Mexico border region, Prof. Geogr., 48 (3), 237-251, doi: 10.1111/j.0033-0124.1996.00237.x.
5. Cook, B. I., T. R. Ault, and, J. E. Smerdon, (2015), Unprecedented 21st century drought risk in the American Southwest and Central Plains, Science Advances, 1 (1), e1400082, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1400082.
6. Dai, A., (2013), The influence of the inter-decadal Pacific oscillation on US precipitation during 1923-2010, Clim. Dyn., 41 (3-4), 633-646, doi: 10.1007/s00382-012-1446-5.
7. Dee, D., et al., (2011), The ERA-Interim reanalysis: Configuration and performance of the data assimilation system, Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc., 137 (656), 553-597, doi: 10.1002/qj.828.
8. Doswell, C. A., III, H. E. Brooks, and, R. A. Maddox, (1996), Flash flood forecasting: An ingredients-based methodology, Weather Forecasting, 11 (4), 560-581, doi: 10.1175/1520-0434(1996)011.
9. Ekstrom, M., P. Jonsson, and, L. Barring, (2002), Synoptic pressure patterns associated with major wind erosion events in southern Sweden, Clim. Res., 23, 51-66, doi: 10.3354/cr023051.
10. Hannaford, J., G. Buys, K. Stahl, and, L. Tallaksen, (2013), The influence of decadal-scale variability on trends in long European streamflow records, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 17 (7), 2717-2733, doi: 10.5194/hess-17-2717-2013.
11. Herweijer, C., R. Seager, and, E. R. Cook, (2006), North American droughts of the mid to late nineteenth century: A history, simulation and implication for Mediaeval drought, Holocene, 16 (2), 159-171, doi: 10.1191/0959683606hl917rp.
12. Holland, G., and, C. L. Bruyère, (2014), Recent intense hurricane response to global climate change, Clim. Dyn., 42 (3-4), 617-627, doi: 10.1007/s00382-013-1713-0.
13. Huang, H.-P., R. Seager, and, Y. Kushnir, (2005), The 1976/77 transition in precipitation over the Americas and the influence of tropical sea surface temperature, Clim. Dyn., 24 (7-8), 721-740, doi: 10.1007/s00382-005-0015-6.
14. Hurrell, J. W., (1995), Decadal trends in the North Atlantic Oscillation: Regional temperatures and precipitation, Science, 269 (5224), 676-679, doi: 10.1126/science.269.5224.676.
15. Huth, R., C. Beck, A. Philipp, M. Demuzere, Z. Ustrnul, M. Cahynová, J. Kysel, and, O. E. Tveito, (2008), Classifications of atmospheric circulation patterns, Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci., 1146 (1), 105-152, doi: 10.1196/annals.1446.019.
16. Karl, T. R., and, J. M. Melillo, (2009), Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, Cambridge Univ. Press, New York.
17. Lin, Y.-L., S. Chiao, T.-A. Wang, M. L. Kaplan, and, R. P. Weglarz, (2001), Some common ingredients for heavy orographic rainfall, Weather Forecasting, 16 (6), 633-660, doi: 10.1175/1520-0434(2001)016.
18. Livneh, B., E. A. Rosenberg, C. Lin, B. Nijssen, V. Mishra, K. M. Andreadis, E. P. Maurer, and, D. P. Lettenmaier, (2013), A long-term hydrologically based dataset of land surface fluxes and states for the conterminous United States: Update and extensions, J. Clim., 26 (23), 9384-9392, doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00508.1.
19. Maurer, E., A. Wood, J. Adam, D. Lettenmaier, and, B. Nijssen, (2002), A long-term hydrologically based dataset of land surface fluxes and states for the conterminous United States, J. Clim., 15 (22), 3237-3251, doi: 10.1175/1520-0442(2002)015.
20. McRoberts, D. B., and, J. W. Nielsen-Gammon, (2011), A new homogenized climate division precipitation dataset for analysis of climate variability and climate change, J. Appl. Meteorol. Climatol., 50 (6), 1187-1199, doi: 10.1175/2010JAMC2626.1.
21. Newman, A. J., M. P. Clark, J. Craig, B. Nijssen, A. Wood, E. Gutmann, N. Mizukami, L. Brekke, and, J. R. Arnold, (2015), Gridded ensemble precipitation and temperature estimates for the contiguous United States, J. Hydrometeorol., doi: 10.1175/JHM-D-15-0026.1.
22. Peterson, T. C., et al., (2013), Monitoring and understanding changes in heat waves, cold waves, floods, and droughts in the United States: State of knowledge, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 94 (6), 821-834, doi: 10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00066.1.
23. Rienecker, M. M., et al., (2011), MERRA: NASA's Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, J. Clim., 24 (14), 3624-3648, doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00015.1.
24. Romesburg, C., (2004), Cluster Analysis for Researchers, Lulu. com., Morrisville, N. C.
25. Scheff, J., and, D. M. Frierson, (2012), Robust future precipitation declines in CMIP5 largely reflect the poleward expansion of model subtropical dry zones, Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L18704, doi: 10.1029/2012GL052910.
26. Schiemann, R., and, C. Frei, (2010), How to quantify the resolution of surface climate by circulation types: An example for Alpine precipitation, Phys. Chem. Earth, 35 (9), 403-410, doi: 10.1016/j.pce.2009.09.005.
27. Schubert, S., H. Wang, and, M. Suarez, (2011), Warm season subseasonal variability and climate extremes in the Northern Hemisphere: The role of stationary Rossby waves, J. Clim., 24 (18), 4773-4792, doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-10-05035.1.
28. Schubert, S. D., M. J. Suarez, P. J. Pegion, R. D. Koster, and, J. T. Bacmeister, (2004a), On the cause of the 1930s Dust Bowl, Science, 303 (5665), 1855-1859, doi: 10.1126/science.1095048.
29. Schubert, S. D., M. J. Suarez, P. J. Pegion, R. D. Koster, and, J. T. Bacmeister, (2004b), Causes of long-term drought in the U.S. Great Plains, J. Clim., 17 (3), 485-503, doi: 10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017.
30. Seager, R., and, G. A. Vecchi, (2010), Greenhouse warming and the 21st century hydroclimate of southwestern North America, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 107 (50), 21,277-21,282.
31. Seager, R., Y. Kushnir, C. Herweijer, N. Naik, and, J. Velez, (2005), Modeling of tropical forcing of persistent droughts and pluvials over Western North America: 1856-2000, J. Clim., 18 (19), 4065-4088, doi: 10.1175/JCLI3522.1.
32. Seager, R., et al., (2007), Model projections of an imminent transition to a more arid climate in southwestern North America, Science, 316 (5828), 1181-1184, doi: 10.1126/science.1139601.
33. Smith, A. B., and, R. W. Katz, (2013), US billion-dollar weather and climate disasters: Data sources, trends, accuracy and biases, Nat. Hazards, 67 (2), 387-410, doi: 10.1007/s11069-013-0566-5.
34. Stocker, T., D. Qin, G. Plattner, M. Tignor, S. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, B. Bex, and, B. Midgley, (2013), IPCC, 2013: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 1535 pp., Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, U. K., and New York.
35. Straus, D. M., and, F. Molteni, (2004), Circulation regimes and SST forcing: Results from large GCM ensembles, J. Clim., 17 (8), 1641-1656, doi: 10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017.
36. Thompson, D. W., and, J. M. Wallace, (1998), The Arctic Oscillation signature in the wintertime geopotential height and temperature fields, Geophys. Res. Lett., 25 (9), 1297-1300, doi: 10.1007/s00382-015-2917-2.
37. Thornton, P. E., M. M. Thornton, B. W. Mayer, N. Wilhelmi, Y. Wei, R. Devarakonda, and, R. B. Cook, (2014), Daymet: Daily surface weather data on a 1-km grid for North America, version 2, Tech. Rep., Oak Ridge Natl. Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, Tenn.
38. Trenberth, K. E., (2011), Changes in precipitation with climate change, Clim. Res., 47 (1), 123-138, doi: 10.3354/cr00953.
39. Wilks, D. S., (2011), Statistical methods in the atmospheric sciences, vol. 100, Academic Press, Amsterdam, doi: 10.1002/met.16.
40. Williams, A. P., R. Seager, J. T. Abatzoglou, B. I. Cook, J. E. Smerdon, and, E. R. Cook, (2015), Contribution of anthropogenic warming to California drought during 2012-2014, Geophys. Res. Lett., 42, 6819-6828, doi: 10.1002/2015GL064924.
41. Wolter, K., (1987), The Southern Oscillation in surface circulation and climate over the tropical Atlantic, Eastern Pacific, and Indian Oceans as captured by cluster analysis, J. Clim. Appl. Meteorol., 26 (4), 540-558, doi: 10.1175/1520-0450(1987)026<0540.