Why do summer droughts in the Southern Great Plains occur in some La Niña years but not others?

Journal of Geophysical Research

Volumn 121, Issue 3, 2016, Pages 1120-1137

  Pu, Bing ^a   Fu, Rong ^a   Dickinson, Robert E ^a   Fernando, D Nelun ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN   (United States)

^b Texas Water Development Board   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DROUGHT; LA NINA; NORTH ATLANTIC OSCILLATION; PACIFIC DECADAL OSCILLATION; PRECIPITATION (CLIMATOLOGY); SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE; SEASONAL VARIATION; SUBSIDENCE; SUMMER;

ATLANTIC OCEAN; ATLANTIC OCEAN (NORTH); ATLANTIC OCEAN (TROPICAL); AUSTRALIA; GREAT PLAINS; MIDWEST; NORTHERN PLAINS; UNITED STATES; VICTORIA [AUSTRALIA];

EID: 84959419351     PISSN: 01480227     EISSN: 21562202     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/2015JD023508     Document Type: Article

References (34)

1. Abudu, S., C. L. Cui, J. P. King, J. Moreno, and A. S. Bawazir (2011), Modeling of daily pan evaporation using partial least squares regression, Sci. China Technol. Sci., 54(1), 163–174, doi:10.1007/s11431-010-4205-z.
2. Alexander, M. A., I. Blade, M. Newman, J. R. Lanzante, N. C. Lau, and J. D. Scott (2002), The atmospheric bridge: The influence of ENSO teleconnections on air-sea interaction over the global oceans, J. Clim., 15(16), 2205–2231, doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2002)015<2205: Tabtio>2.0.Co;2.
3. Curtis, S., and S. Hastenrath (1995), Forcing of anomalous sea-surface temperature evolution in the tropical Atlantic during Pacific warm events, J. Geophys. Res., 100(C8), 15,835–15,847, doi:10.1029/95JC01502.
4. Dai, A., K. E. Trenberth, and T. R. Karl (1998), Global variations in droughts and wet spells: 1900–1995, Geophys. Res. Lett., 25(17), 3367–3370, doi:10.1029/98GL52511.
5. Enfield, D. B., and D. A. Mayer (1997), Tropical Atlantic sea surface temperature variability and its relation to El Niño Southern Oscillation, J. Geophys. Res., 102(C1), 929–945, doi:10.1029/96JC03296.
6. Fernando, D. N., R. Fu, R. S. Solis, R. E. Mace, Y. Sun, B. Yan, and B. Pu (2015), Early warning of summer drought over Texas and the south central United States: Spring conditions as a harbinger of summer drought, Rep. Texas Water Development Board Tech. Note15-02, Texas Water Development Board.
7. Hoerling, M., and A. Kumar (2003), The perfect ocean for drought, Science, 299(5607), 691–694, doi:10.1126/science.1079053.
8. Jones, P., and I. Harris (2013), CRU TS3.21: Climatic Research Unit (CRU) time-series (TS) version 3.21 of high resolution gridded data of month-by-month variation in climate (Jan. 1901–Dec. 2012), NCAS British Atmos. Data Centre.
9. Kalnay, E., et al. (1996), The NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis project, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 77(3), 437–471, doi:10.1175/1520-0477(1996)077<0437:Tnyrp>2.0.Co;2.
10. Krishnamurthy, L., G. A. Vecchi, R. Msadek, A. Wittenberg, T. L. Delworth, and A. F. Zeng (2015), The seasonality of the Great Plains low-level jet and ENSO relationship, J. Clim., 28, 4525–4544.
11. Kushnir, Y., R. Seager, M. F. Ting, N. Naik, and J. Nakamura (2010), Mechanisms of tropical Atlantic SST influence on North American precipitation variability, J. Clim., 23(21), 5610–5628, doi:10.1175/2010jcli3172.1.
12. Lau, N. C., A. Leetmaa, and M. J. Nath (2006), Attribution of atmospheric variations in the 1997–2003 period to SST anomalies in the Pacific and Indian Ocean Basins, J. Clim., 19(15), 3607–3628, doi:10.1175/Jcli3813.1.
13. Liu, A. Z., M. F. Ting, and H. L. Wang (1998), Maintenance of circulation anomalies during the 1988 drought and 1993 floods over the United States, J. Atmos. Sci., 55(17), 2810–2832, doi:10.1175/1520-0469(1998)055<2810:Mocadt>2.0.Co;2.
14. Magaña, V., J. A. Amador, and S. Medina (1999), The midsummer drought over Mexico and Central America, J. Clim., 12(6), 1577–1588, doi:10.1175/1520-0442(1999)012<1577:Tmdoma>2.0.Co;2.
15. Mo, K. C., J. K. E. Schemm, and S. H. Yoo (2009), Influence of ENSO and the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation on drought over the United States, J. Clim., 22(22), 5962–5982, doi:10.1175/2009jcli2966.1.
16. Nigam, S., B. Guan, and A. Ruiz-Barradas (2011), Key role of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation in 20th century drought and wet periods over the Great Plains, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L16713, doi:10.1029/2011GL048650.
17. Rayner, N. A., D. E. Parker, E. B. Horton, C. K. Folland, L. V. Alexander, D. P. Rowell, E. C. Kent, and A. Kaplan (2003), Global analyses of sea surface temperature, sea ice, and night marine air temperature since the late nineteenth century, J. Geophys. Res., 108(D14), 4407, doi:10.1029/2002JD002670.
18. Ruiz-Barradas, A., and S. Nigam (2005), Warm season rainfall variability over the US great plains in observations, NCEP and ERA-40 reanalyses, and NCAR and NASA atmospheric model simulations, J. Clim., 18(11), 1808–1830, doi:10.1175/Jcli3343.1.
19. Schubert, S., et al. (2009), A US CLIVAR project to assess and compare the responses of global climate models to drought-related SST forcing patterns: Overview and results, J. Clim., 22(19), 5251–5272, doi:10.1175/2009jcli3060.1.
20. Schubert, S. D., M. J. Suarez, P. J. Pegion, R. D. Koster, and J. T. Bacmeister (2004), Causes of long-term drought in the US Great Plains, J. Clim., 17(3), 485–503, doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<0485:Coldit>2.0.Co;2.
21. Seager, R. (2007), The turn of the century North American drought: Global context, dynamics, and past analogs, J. Clim., 20(22), 5527–5552, doi:10.1175/2007JCLI1529.1.
22. Seager, R., and M. Hoerling (2014), Atmosphere and ocean origins of North American droughts, J. Clim., 27(12), 4581–4606, doi:10.1175/Jcli-D-13-00329.1.
23. Seager, R., N. Harnik, Y. Kushnir, W. Robinson, and J. Miller (2003), Mechanisms of hemispherically symmetric climate variability, J. Clim., 16(18), 2960–2978, doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2003)016<2960:Mohscv>2.0.Co;2.
24. Seager, R., N. Harnik, W. A. Robinson, Y. Kushnir, M. Ting, H. P. Huang, and J. Velez (2005a), Mechanisms of ENSO-forcing of hemispherically symmetric precipitation variability, Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc., 131(608), 1501–1527, doi:10.1256/Qj.04.96.
25. Seager, R., Y. Kushnir, C. Herweijer, N. Naik, and J. Velez (2005b), 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.
26. Seager, R., M. Ting, M. Davis, M. Cane, N. Naik, J. Nakamura, C. Li, E. Cook, and D. W. Stahle (2009), Mexican drought: An observational modeling and tree ring study of variability and climate change, Atmosfera, 22(1), 1–31.
27. Seager, R., L. Goddard, J. Nakamura, N. Henderson, and D. E. Lee (2014), Dynamical causes of the 2010/11 Texas-Northern Mexico Drought*, J. Hydrometeorol., 15(1), 39–68, doi:10.1175/Jhm-D-13-024.1.
28. Smith, T. M., R. W. Reynolds, T. C. Peterson, and J. Lawrimore (2008), Improvements to NOAA’s historical merged land-ocean surface temperature analysis (1880–2006), J. Clim., 21(10), 2283–2296.
29. Ting, M. F., and H. Wang (1997), Summertime US precipitation variability and its relation to Pacific sea surface temperature, J. Clim., 10(8), 1853–1873, doi:10.1175/1520-0442(1997)010<1853:Suspva>2.0.Co;2.
30. Trenberth, K. E., G. W. Branstator, and P. A. Arkin (1988), Origins of the 1988 North-American drought, Science, 242(4886), 1640–1645, doi:10.1126/science.242.4886.1640.
31. Wang, H., A. Kumar, W. Wang, and B. Jha (2012), U.S. summer precipitation and temperature patterns following the peak phase of El Niño, J. Clim., 25, 7204–7215.
32. Weaver, S. J., and S. Nigam (2008), Variability of the great plains low-level jet: Large-scale circulation context and hydroclimate impacts, J. Clim., 21(7), 1532–1551, doi:10.1175/2007jcli1586.1.
33. Weaver, S. J., S. Schubert, and H. Wang (2009), Warm season variations in the low-level circulation and precipitation over the central United Sates in observations, AMIP simulations, and idealized SST experiments, J. Clim., 22, 5401–5420, doi:10.1175/2009JCLI2984.1.
34. Worster, D. (1979), Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s, 277 pp., Oxford Univ. Press, New York.