Prediction of Summer Maximum and Minimum Temperature over the Central and Western United States: The Roles of Soil Moisture and Sea Surface Temperature

Alfaro, Eric J.; Gershunov, Alexander; Cayan, Daniel R.

doi:10.1175/jcli3665.1

Cited by 79 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Although global anthropogenic signals are often difficult to separate from natural climate variability at this regional scale and early stage of climate change, it has recently and convincingly been done for this region. 45 The observed regional trends of decreasing snow/rain ratio, 83 earlier spring snowmelt, 84 and warmer spring and summer seasons 84,85 are consistent with climate-model projections. These changes, which are because of both natural and anthropogenic causes, 45 influence summertime soil moisture in the western United States.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Interannual Variability of Human Plague Occurrence in the Western United States Explained by Tropical and North Pacific Ocean Climate Variability

Ben-Ari¹,

Gershunov²,

Tristan³

et al. 2010

The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

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Plague is a vector-borne, highly virulent zoonotic disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. It persists in nature through transmission between its hosts (wild rodents) and vectors (fleas). During epizootics, the disease expands and spills over to other host species such as humans living in or close to affected areas. Here, we investigate the effect of large-scale climate variability on the dynamics of human plague in the western United States using a 56-year time series of plague reports (1950–2005). We found that El Niño Southern Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation in combination affect the dynamics of human plague over the western United States. The underlying mechanism could involve changes in precipitation and temperatures that impact both hosts and vectors. It is suggested that snow also may play a key role, possibly through its effects on summer soil moisture, which is known to be instrumental for flea survival and development and sustained growth of vegetation for rodents.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Interannual Variability of Human Plague Occurrence in the Western United States Explained by Tropical and North Pacific Ocean Climate Variability

Ben-Ari¹,

Gershunov²,

Tristan³

et al. 2010

The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

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“…Note that if we perform the same set of statistical analysis to the winter precipitation and summer minimum temperature, we do not obtain the same relations. This is physically reasonable because the minimum temperature is highly constrained by external forcings, e.g., solar radiation and atmosphere circulation, rather than land surface processes (Alfaro et al, 2006;Zhang et al, 2008).…”

Section: The Role Of Soil Moisturementioning

confidence: 98%

A summer climate regime over Europe modulated by the North Atlantic Oscillation

Wang

Dolman

Alessandri

2011

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Recent summer heat waves in Europe were found to be preceded by precipitation deficits in winter. Numerical studies suggest that these phenomena are dynamically linked by land-atmosphere interactions. However, there exists as yet no complete observational evidence that connects summer climate variability to winter precipitation and the relevant circulation patterns. In this paper, we investigate the functional responses of summer mean and maximum temperature (June-August, T mean and T max ) as well as soil moisture proxied by the self-calibrating Palmer drought severity index (scPDSI) to preceding winter precipitation (JanuaryMarch, P JFM ) for the period 1901-2005. All the analyzed summer fields show distinctive responses to P JFM over the Mediterranean. We estimate that 10 ∼ 15% of the interannual variability of T max and T mean over the Mediterranean is statistically forced by P JFM . For the scPDSI this amounts to 10 ∼ 25%. Further analysis shows that these responses are highly correlated to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) regime over the Mediterranean. We suggest that NAO modulates European summer temperature by controlling winter precipitation that initializes the moisture states that subsequently interact with temperature. This picture of relations between European summer climate and NAO as well as winter precipitation suggests potential for improved seasonal prediction of summer climate for particular extreme events.

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“…Heatwave frequency in the United States is affected by changes in greenhouse gas content (e.g., ref. 18), soil moisture, and local precipitation (19)(20)(21), as well as by patterns in SSTs in both Pacific and Atlantic Ocean (16,17,(22)(23)(24). These relationships imply that ozone is also likely to be influenced by these large-scale climate patterns and can be predicted in advance.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal prediction of US summertime ozone using statistical analysis of large scale climate patterns

Shen

Mickley

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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We develop a statistical model to predict June-July-August (JJA) daily maximum 8-h average (MDA8) ozone concentrations in the eastern United States based on large-scale climate patterns during the previous spring. We find that anomalously high JJA ozone in the East is correlated with these springtime patterns: warm tropical Atlantic and cold northeast Pacific sea surface temperatures (SSTs), as well as positive sea level pressure (SLP) anomalies over Hawaii and negative SLP anomalies over the Atlantic and North America. We then develop a linear regression model to predict JJA MDA8 ozone from 1980 to 2013, using the identified SST and SLP patterns from the previous spring. The model explains ∼45% of the variability in JJA MDA8 ozone concentrations and ∼30% variability in the number of JJA ozone episodes (>70 ppbv) when averaged over the eastern United States. This seasonal predictability results from large-scale ocean-atmosphere interactions. Warm tropical Atlantic SSTs can trigger diabatic heating in the atmosphere and influence the extratropical climate through stationary wave propagation, leading to greater subsidence, less precipitation, and higher temperatures in the East, which increases surface ozone concentrations there. Cooler SSTs in the northeast Pacific are also associated with more summertime heatwaves and high ozone in the East. On average, models participating in the Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project fail to capture the influence of this ocean-atmosphere interaction on temperatures in the eastern United States, implying that such models would have difficulty simulating the interannual variability of surface ozone in this region.ozone | seasonal forecast | teleconnection | sea surface temperature

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Prediction of Summer Maximum and Minimum Temperature over the Central and Western United States: The Roles of Soil Moisture and Sea Surface Temperature

Cited by 79 publications

References 25 publications

Interannual Variability of Human Plague Occurrence in the Western United States Explained by Tropical and North Pacific Ocean Climate Variability

Interannual Variability of Human Plague Occurrence in the Western United States Explained by Tropical and North Pacific Ocean Climate Variability

A summer climate regime over Europe modulated by the North Atlantic Oscillation

Seasonal prediction of US summertime ozone using statistical analysis of large scale climate patterns

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