Wetter California Projected by CMIP6 Models With Observational Constraints Under a High GHG Emission Scenario
Abstract
As the world's fifth-largest economy entity, California (CA) is vulnerable to climate changes especially the magnitude of winter (wet season) precipitation that is closely linked to regional drought severity, vegetation growth, and wildfire activities. However, the fate of CA precipitation in the future remains highly uncertain, for example, the state-of-the-art Earth system models (ESMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) projected –3% to +42% and –27% to +63% precipitation changes in northern and central-southern CA, respectively, under the high greenhouse gas (GHG) emission scenario (SSP585). In this work, we applied the Pareto optimality concept and used observed teleconnection patterns (causal relationships between ocean regions and CA precipitation) to mechanistically constrain CMIP6 projected CA precipitations. We estimated that precipitation will robustly increase by 0.4–1.3 mm d–1 (10–34%) over northern CA and increase by 0.1–0.5 mm d–1 (7–32%) over central-southern CA by the end of the 21st century compared with present-day. Up to 71% of ESM projection uncertainties were reduced mainly due to the strong and consistent causal relationship between North American west coast sea level pressure and CA precipitation in both observations and CMIP6 models. Our results suggest that teleconnection patterns are powerful mechanistic constraints that can helpmore »
- Authors:
-
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Wuhan Univ. (China)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Wuhan Univ. (China)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1883336
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Earth's Future
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 10; Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 2328-4277
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; California precipitation; CMIP6 model projections; uncertainty reduction; causal inference
Citation Formats
Li, Fa, Zhu, Qing, Riley, William J., Yuan, Kunxiaojia, Wu, Huayi, and Gui, Zhipeng. Wetter California Projected by CMIP6 Models With Observational Constraints Under a High GHG Emission Scenario. United States: N. p., 2022.
Web. doi:10.1029/2022ef002694.
Li, Fa, Zhu, Qing, Riley, William J., Yuan, Kunxiaojia, Wu, Huayi, & Gui, Zhipeng. Wetter California Projected by CMIP6 Models With Observational Constraints Under a High GHG Emission Scenario. United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022ef002694
Li, Fa, Zhu, Qing, Riley, William J., Yuan, Kunxiaojia, Wu, Huayi, and Gui, Zhipeng. Sat .
"Wetter California Projected by CMIP6 Models With Observational Constraints Under a High GHG Emission Scenario". United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022ef002694. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1883336.
@article{osti_1883336,
title = {Wetter California Projected by CMIP6 Models With Observational Constraints Under a High GHG Emission Scenario},
author = {Li, Fa and Zhu, Qing and Riley, William J. and Yuan, Kunxiaojia and Wu, Huayi and Gui, Zhipeng},
abstractNote = {As the world's fifth-largest economy entity, California (CA) is vulnerable to climate changes especially the magnitude of winter (wet season) precipitation that is closely linked to regional drought severity, vegetation growth, and wildfire activities. However, the fate of CA precipitation in the future remains highly uncertain, for example, the state-of-the-art Earth system models (ESMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) projected –3% to +42% and –27% to +63% precipitation changes in northern and central-southern CA, respectively, under the high greenhouse gas (GHG) emission scenario (SSP585). In this work, we applied the Pareto optimality concept and used observed teleconnection patterns (causal relationships between ocean regions and CA precipitation) to mechanistically constrain CMIP6 projected CA precipitations. We estimated that precipitation will robustly increase by 0.4–1.3 mm d–1 (10–34%) over northern CA and increase by 0.1–0.5 mm d–1 (7–32%) over central-southern CA by the end of the 21st century compared with present-day. Up to 71% of ESM projection uncertainties were reduced mainly due to the strong and consistent causal relationship between North American west coast sea level pressure and CA precipitation in both observations and CMIP6 models. Our results suggest that teleconnection patterns are powerful mechanistic constraints that can help explain and reduce uncertainties in ESM projections.},
doi = {10.1029/2022ef002694},
journal = {Earth's Future},
number = 4,
volume = 10,
place = {United States},
year = {Sat Mar 26 00:00:00 EDT 2022},
month = {Sat Mar 26 00:00:00 EDT 2022}
}
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