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Title: Causes of Extreme Ridges That Induce California Droughts

Journal Article · · Journal of Climate
 [1];  [1]
  1. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
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California droughts are often caused by high-amplitude and persistent ridges near and off the west coast of North America without apparent connections with ENSO. Here with a hierarchy of climate models, it is demonstrated that extreme ridges in this region are associated with a continuum of zonal wavenumber-5 circumglobal teleconnection patterns that originate from midlatitude atmospheric internal dynamics. Although tropical diabatic heating anomalies are not essential to the formation and maintenance of these wave patterns, certain persistent heating anomalies may double the probability of ridges with amplitudes in the 90th percentile occurring on interannual time scales. Those heating anomalies can be caused by either natural variability or possibly by climate change, and they do not necessarily depend on ENSO. The extreme ridges that occurred during the 2013/14 and 2014/15 winters could be examples of ridges produced by heating anomalies that are not associated with ENSO. As a result, this mechanism could provide a source of subseasonal-to-interannual predictability beyond the predictability provided by ENSO.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
FC02-97ER62402; AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1524069
Journal Information:
Journal of Climate, Vol. 30, Issue 4; ISSN 0894-8755
Publisher:
American Meteorological SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 59 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (8)

Quasi‐stationary waves and their impact on European weather and extreme events
  • Wolf, Gabriel; Brayshaw, David J.; Klingaman, Nicholas P.
  • Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol. 144, Issue 717 https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3310
journal October 2018
Identifying Sustained Drought Anomalies in Hydrological Records: A Wavelet Approach journal July 2018
A new interhemispheric teleconnection increases predictability of winter precipitation in southwestern US journal June 2018
Ocean‐Atmosphere Trajectories of Extended Drought in Southwestern North America journal August 2019
Increasing precipitation volatility in twenty-first-century California journal April 2018
Metrics for understanding large-scale controls of multivariate temperature and precipitation variability journal April 2019
California from drought to deluge journal June 2017
Tracking Groundwater Levels using the Ambient Seismic Field text January 2018

Figures / Tables (12)

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FIG. 12(p. 14)figure FIG. 12

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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Atmospheric circulation
Diabatic heating
Pacific-North American pattern/oscillation
Climate variability
Interannual variability