Rainfall patterns in the western United States

Vines, R. G.

doi:10.1029/jc087ic09p07303

Cited by 30 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…To avoid loss of terms corresponding to 0.5 (k-l), where 'k' is the number of filter weights at the beginning and end of the filtered series, Vines (1982) suggested adding the average value of the unfiltered series 0.5 (k-l) times at the beginning and end of the unfiltered series. This results in a filtered series having the same number of terms as the original series.…”

Section: The Lowpass Filter Techniquementioning

confidence: 99%

Changing patterns of rain-days in Nigeria

Olaniran

1990

GeoJournal

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The rain-day series in Nigeria have been examined for periodicities, fluctuations and trends for four regions arranged from south to north (the Coastal, GuineaSavanna, Midland and Sahelian zones) based on data collected for the period 1919-1985. A significant decline was found in annual rain-days for each zone of the country from 1939-1985 and also during the recent period, 1968-85. This decline was found to begin in July in the Sahel thereafter extending to the Midland in August and still further southwards to embrace the Guinea-Savanna zone by September and October. Evidence was found of a synchronization of fluctuations in annual rain-days in the south-north direction for the country. Only the quasi-biennial oscillation of 2.4-2.8 years was found to be common to the 4 regional annual rain-days series. Finally, the implications of the results for the causative mechanisms of rainfall variability in the country are discussed.

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Section: The Lowpass Filter Techniquementioning

confidence: 99%

Changing patterns of rain-days in Nigeria

Olaniran

1990

GeoJournal

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“…Gap models simulate recruitment, growth and mortality of individual Ropelewski and Halpert 1986, Holdsworth et al 1992, Quinn and Neal 1992Jones et al 1986, Wigley and Raper 1990Broecker 1975, Stocker and Mysak 1992Broecker 1975, Stocker and Mysak 1992 References Vines 1982, Currie and O'Brien 1988Kerr 1984, Currie and O'Brien 1988 plants on a single plot through time, with plot size corresponding to the size of a mature dominant individual plant in the ecosystem. Trees growing on model plots compete for available light, water and nutrients under varying temperature constraints.…”

Section: Study Sites and Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, a lunar cycle with a period of about 19 years has been reported from rain-gauge records of the western U.S. (Kerr 1984;Currie and O'Brien 1990). Sunspot and double-sunspot cycles have been correlated with drought cycles based on treering data and rain-gauge records (Vines 1982;Currie and O'Brien 1990). Data from ice cores in northern Canada contained three main frequencies in precipitation, two of which were attributed to sunspot and double-sunspot cycles, and a third with a period of 3.8 yrs that may correspond with an El Nifio cycle (Holdsworth et al 1992).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Data from ice cores in northern Canada contained three main frequencies in precipitation, two of which were attributed to sunspot and double-sunspot cycles, and a third with a period of 3.8 yrs that may correspond with an El Nifio cycle (Holdsworth et al 1992). Estimated amplitude for these cycles is in the range of 5-10% of annual mean precipitation (Vines 1982;Currie and O'Brien 1988).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Response of North American ecosystem models to multi-annual periodicities in temperature and precipitation

et al. 1994

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Ecosystem models typically use input temperature and precipitation data generated stochastically from weather station means and variances. Although the weather station data are based on measurements taken over a few decades, model simulations are usually on the order of centuries. Consequently, observed periodicities in temperature and precipitation at the continental scale that have been correlated with largescale forcings, such as ocean-atmosphere dynamics and lunar and sunspot cycles, are ignored. We investigated how these natural climatic fluctuations affect aboveground biomass in ecosystem models by incorporating some of the more pronounced continental-scale cycles in temperature (4, 11, 80, 180 year periods) and precipitation (11 and 19 year periods) into models of three North American forests (using LINKAGES) and one North American grassland (using STEPPE). Even without inclusion of periodicities in climate, long-term dynamics of these models were characterized by internal frequencies resulting from vegetation birth, growth and death processes. Our results indicate that long-term temperature cycles result in significantly lower predictions of forest biomass than observed in the control case for a forest on a biome transition (northern hardwoods/boreal forest). Lower-frequency, higher-amplitude temperature oscillation caused amplification of forest biomass response in forests containing hardwood species. Shortgrass prairie and boreal ecosystems, dominated by species with broad stress tolerance ranges, were relatively insensitive to climatic oscillations. Our results suggest periodicities in climate should be incorporated within long-term simulations of ecosystems with strong internal frequencies, particularly for systems on biome transitions.

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“…The cyclic variation of nearly 19 years is attributed to the lunar tide in the atmosphere whose forcing function has a period of 18.613 years, while 10-11 year cycle is presumably related to the well-known solar cycle. Vines (1982Vines ( , 1984 also presented evidence of a pronounced rainfall cycle of about 22 years in addition to the 18.6 year lunar cycle in the Western United States, and another cycle closer to 16 years in the north-eastern coast and including southern Quebec and the Canadian maritime provinces. In a similar manner, Bradley (1976a) noted a significant quasi-biennial signal in the summer precipitation series of many stations in the Western United States.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The quasi-periodic fluctuations in the drought indices over the North American Great Plains

Oladipo

1989

Nat Hazards

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The maximum entropy spectral technique is used to search for periodicities in drought indices over the Great Plains of North America, covering a period of at least 70 years. The results show that in general, quasi-biennial, quasi-triennial and quasi-five-year cycles dominate the spectra of drought indices of many stations in the region. These significant periodicities in the 2-6 year waveband are, however, sporadic in their spatial distribution; they can be evident at one station while being absent at another a few hundred kilometres away. From the results of the spectral analysis, it is concluded that significant peaks obtained in the drought indices are only short-lived time variabilities in drought as recorded by individual stations and do not represent any persistent drought characteristics over a broad geographical region. In general, the drought series display only what appears to be a random variation, with the possible exception of a systematic quasi-biennial oscillation.

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Rainfall patterns in the western United States

Cited by 30 publications

References 10 publications

Changing patterns of rain-days in Nigeria

Changing patterns of rain-days in Nigeria

Response of North American ecosystem models to multi-annual periodicities in temperature and precipitation

The quasi-periodic fluctuations in the drought indices over the North American Great Plains

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