The 1995 drought — a water resources perspective

Marsh, Terry; Turton, Ps

doi:10.1002/j.1477-8696.1996.tb06184.x

Cited by 49 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…The consensus of Figs. 4 to 6 is a shift towards shorter summer wet-spells with lower intensities, separated by longer dry-interludes -a pattern that is consistent with reports of increased summer drought severity (Marsh and Turton, 1996) and higher summer indices (Mayes, 1998) since the 1970s. From these preliminary analyses it is evident that there have been significant inter-decadal variations in the parameters describing UK summer rainfall since 1901.…”

Section: North Atlantic Forcing Of Summer Rainfallsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…1), selected on the basis of their longevity and geographic coverage of central, southern and eastern England/Scotland. These regions were chosen because they were most severely impacted by recent summer Table 2) droughts (Marsh and Turton, 1996). To remove the effect of "trace" rainfall amounts on parameter estimates, all days with precipitation totals less than or equal to 0.3 mm were treated as "dry" days.…”

Section: Daily Rainfallmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Each parameter was derived from 92 days of daily rainfall in summer (June-August) for each year since 1901. This analysis was made firstly to determine the extent to which the three parameters correlate with summer North Atlantic SST anomalies because of concerns about marked changes in the spatial and temporal character of summer rainfall across the British Isles since the 1970s, with concomitant water resource impacts (Conway, 1998;Jones and Conway, 1997;Marsh and Turton, 1996;Mayes, 1996Mayes, , 1998. Secondly, it was done to evaluate the skill of summer rainfall forecasts derived from statistical downscaling models that use preceding winter (December-February) SSTs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Downscaling summer rainfall in the UK from North Atlantic ocean temperatures

Wilby

2001

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Annual series of three stochastic rainfall model parameters -the seasonal wet day amount (or intensity), the conditional dry-day probability (or dry-spell persistence), and the conditional wet-day probability (or wet-spell persistence) -were examined using daily rainfall records for ten UK stations for the period 1901-1995. The purpose was first, to determine the extent to which these indices of summer (June-August) rainfall were correlated with empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) of summer North Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies: second, to evaluate the skill of EOFs of preceding winter (December-February) SSTs for summer rainfall forecasting and downscaling. Correlation analyses suggest that observed increases in summer dry-spell persistence since the 1970s coincided with positive SST anomalies in the North Atlantic. In contrast, wet-spell persistence and intensities were relatively weakly correlated with the same patterns, implying that the use of SSTs is justifiable for conditioning occurrence but not intensity parameters. Furthermore, the correlation strengths were greater for EOFs of SSTs than those reported for area-average SST anomalies, indicating that the pattern of SST anomalies conveys important information about seasonal rainfall anomalies across the UK. When EOFs of winter SSTs were used to forecast summer rainfall in Cambridge, the skill was once again greater for dry-spells than either wet-spells or intensities. However, even for dry-spells, the correlation with observationswhilst statistically significant -was still rather modest (r<0.4). Nonetheless, the results are comparable to previous investigations of summer rainfall across Europe, and suggest that forecasting skill (across the UK) originates from the predictability of the rainfall occurrence process.

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Section: North Atlantic Forcing Of Summer Rainfallsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Daily Rainfallmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Downscaling summer rainfall in the UK from North Atlantic ocean temperatures

Wilby

2001

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…The Mann -Kendall test calculated far more positive trends in the UK and the northwestern part of Germany. Given that unusually low flows occurred in the UK from 1989 to 1992 and in 1995 (Marsh and Monkhouse, 1993;Marsh and Turton, 1996;Jones and Lister, 1998), the Mann -Kendall test result seems reasonable. A likely reason for the difference lies in the resampling test splitting these dry years into two averaging periods (1986 -1991 and 1992 -1995), thus reducing the trend signal.…”

Section: Summary Statistics Of Significant Trendsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Have streamflow droughts in Europe become more severe or frequent?

Hisdal

Stahl

Tallaksen

et al. 2001

Intl Journal of Climatology

327

260

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Changes in the magnitude and frequency of droughts will have extensive impacts on water management, agriculture and aquatic ecosystems. With the projected global temperature increase, scientists generally agree that the global hydrological cycle will intensify and suggest that extremes will become or have already become more common. In this study, a pan-European dataset of more than 600 daily streamflow records from the European Water Archive (EWA) was analysed to detect spatial and temporal changes in streamflow droughts. Four different time periods were analysed: 1962-1990, 1962-1995, 1930-1995 and 1911-1995. The focus was on hydrological droughts derived by applying the threshold level approach, which defines droughts as periods during which the streamflow is below a certain threshold. The Annual Maximum Series (AMS) of drought severity and the frequency of droughts in Partial Duration Series (PDS) were studied. Despite several reports on recent droughts in Europe, the non-parametric Mann-Kendall test and a resampling test for trend detection showed that it is not possible to conclude that drought conditions in general have become more severe or frequent. The period analysed and the selection of stations strongly influenced the regional pattern. For most stations, no significant changes were detected. However, distinct regional differences were found. Within the period 1962-1990 examples of increasing drought deficit volumes were found in Spain, the eastern part of Eastern Europe and in large parts of the UK, whereas decreasing drought deficit volumes occurred in large parts of Central Europe and in the western part of Eastern Europe. Trends in drought deficit volumes or durations could, to a large extent, be explained through changes in precipitation or artificial influences in the catchment. Changes in the number of drought events per year were determined by the combined effect of climate and catchment characteristics such as storage capacity. The importance of the time period chosen for trend analysis is illustrated using two very long time series.

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“…Regardless of the underlying causes of changing rainfall patterns, any long-term trend in rainfall and river flow has ramifications for the water industry, placing even greater demands on the effective management of water storage and distribution systems (e.g. Marsh and Turton, 1996). Provision of seasonal forecast statistics for surface climate variables may help alleviate…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prospects for seasonal forecasting of summer drought and low river flow anomalies in England and Wales

Wedgbrow

Wilby

Fox

et al. 2002

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Future climate change scenarios suggest enhanced temporal and spatial gradients in water resources across the UK. Provision of seasonal forecast statistics for surface climate variables could alleviate some negative effects of climate change on water resource infrastructure. This paper presents a preliminary investigation of spatial and temporal relationships between large-scale North Atlantic climatic indices, drought severity and river flow anomalies in England and Wales. Potentially useful predictive relationships are explored between winter indices of the Polar-Eurasian (POL) teleconnection pattern, the North Atlantic oscillation (NAO), North Atlantic sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs), and the summer Palmer drought severity index (PDSI) and reconstructed river flows in England and Wales. Correlation analyses, coherence testing and an index of forecast potential, demonstrate that preceding winter values of the POL index, SSTA (and to a lesser extent the NAO), provide indications of summer and early autumn drought severity and river flow anomalies in parts of northwest, southwest and southeast England. Correlation analyses demonstrate that positive winter anomalies of T1, POL index and NAO index are associated with negative PDSI (i.e. drought) across eastern parts of the British Isles in summer (r < 0.51). Coherence tests show that a positive winter SSTA (1871SSTA ( -1995 and POL index (1950-95) have preceded below-average summer river flows in the northwest and southwest of England and Wales in 70 to 100% of summers. The same rivers have also experienced below-average flows during autumn following negative winter phases of the NAO index in 64 to 93% of summers . Possible explanations for the predictor-predictand relationships are considered, including the 'memory' of groundwater, and ocean-atmosphere coupling, and regional manifestations of synoptic rainfall processes. However, further research is necessary to increase the number of years and predictor variables from which it is possible to derive rules that may be useful for forecasting.

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The 1995 drought — a water resources perspective

Cited by 49 publications

References 5 publications

Downscaling summer rainfall in the UK from North Atlantic ocean temperatures

Downscaling summer rainfall in the UK from North Atlantic ocean temperatures

Have streamflow droughts in Europe become more severe or frequent?

Prospects for seasonal forecasting of summer drought and low river flow anomalies in England and Wales

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