Potential Influence of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation in the Recent Climate of a Small Basin in Central Mexico

Abstract

One of the main current challenges is detecting changes in the climate at the regional level. The present study tried to address this issue by looking for some influence of large-scale climate oscillations on the climate of a small and complex topography basin in Central Mexico. We collected temperature and precipitation data from 44 climate stations within an area of up to 20 km around the Apatlaco River sub-basin (~30 km south of Mexico City) during the period 1950–2013. Posteriorly, quality analysis and homogenization of the climate databases were performed by using the Climatol algorithm. We analyzed the trend of five ETCCDI climate indices through several statistical tests. Finally, we calculated simple Pearson correlations of those indices with four climate oscillation indices that have affected Mexico’s climate in the recent past. The results revealed that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation had a clear influence on four of the five indices analyzed in the study area. The summer days and the extreme maximum and minimum temperatures accounted for a small increase in the temperature of the middle east (urban) basin compared to the middle west (rural), which could be a manifestation of the heat island effect or the difference in soil type (and therefore albedo) of the two zones. As expected, the midsummer drought effect predominated in most of the sub-basin, with only the uppermost part showing monsoon-type precipitation during a typical year.

Characterization, variability and long‐term trends on local climate in a Mexican tropical dry forest

“…Interestingly, we found a positive and significant correlation between AMO and precipitation during the wet season, and between PDO and precipitation during the dry season (Table S1). To the authors' knowledge, such correlations had not been previously described for our study region, but Montero‐Martínez et al (2022) reported an increase in precipitation and temperature during AMO positive phase in central Mexico. Also, Elder et al (2014) and Park et al (2017) described an influence of AMO and PDO in drought events in Mexico, which stress the importance of keeping track of these ocean–atmosphere oscillations in future assessments of local climate trends.…”

Climate teleconnections modulate global burned area

“…CT-fire relationships in western United States were generally weak, mainly related to +AMO, +PDO and +ENSO, which may induce drought conditions and increased BA. BA in Southern Mexico and Central America (CTD 5) is correlated with the positive phases of AMO, TNA, ENSO and PDO, all of them associated with drought conditions 32 .…”

Developing a high-resolution gridded rainfall product for Bangladesh during 1901–2018

“…Domonkos, et al 51 also showed Climatol to be effective for homogenizing climate data. Therefore, it has been widely used as an effective climate data homogenization tool in recent years 52,53 . Details of Climatol can be found in Guijarro 54 .…”