Skip to main content

Dataset / Data from: Four Atmospheric Circulation Regimes Over the North Pacific and Their …

Have a question about this item?

Item information. View source record on contributor's website.

Title
Data from: Four Atmospheric Circulation Regimes Over the North Pacific and Their Relationship to California Precipitation on Daily to Seasonal Timescales
Creator
Corringham, Thomas W
DeFlorio, Michael J
Delle Monache, Luca
Gershunov, Alexander
Guirguis, Kristen
Ralph, F. Martin
Shulgina, Tamara
Subramanian, Aneesh C
Date Created and/or Issued
2018
Contributing Institution
UC San Diego, Research Data Curation Program
Collection
Data from: Four Atmospheric Circulation Regimes Over the North Pacific and Their Relationship to California Precipitation on Daily to Seasonal Timescales
Rights Information
Under copyright
Constraint(s) on Use: This work is protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). Use of this work beyond that allowed by "fair use" or any license applied to this work requires written permission of the copyright holder(s). Responsibility for obtaining permissions and any use and distribution of this work rests exclusively with the user and not the UC San Diego Library. Inquiries can be made to the UC San Diego Library program having custody of the work.
Use: This work is available from the UC San Diego Library. This digital copy of the work is intended to support research, teaching, and private study.
Rights Holder and Contact
UC Regents
Description
Abstract: Precipitation in California is highly variable and not well forecasted on subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) timescales. Understanding relationships between synoptic-scale atmospheric circulation and hydrometeorological extremes could improve predictability. This work demonstrates the importance of four North Pacific circulation regimes (called the NP4 modes) in modulating precipitation, flooding, and water resources in California. Here we demonstrate how, on daily timescales, interactions between the NP4 modes drive coastal flow that can result in dry conditions from atmospheric ridging or wet conditions associated with enhanced onshore flow and atmospheric river (AR) landfalls. Seasonally, the prevalence of certain NP4 phase relationships can tip the scale towards wet or dry conditions. Relationships between El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the NP4 are explored, and we provide insight into the poorly-forecasted Western US seasonal precipitation during the “Godzilla” El Niño winter of 2016 by examining climate-weather linkages in a historical context.
US Department of Reclamation: USBR-R15AC00003; California Department of Water Resources: 4600010378 UCOP2-11; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: NA17OAR4310284; Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center: G18AC00320
Research Data Curation Program, UC San Diego, La Jolla, 92093-0175 (https://lib.ucsd.edu/rdcp)
Guirguis, Kristen; Gershunov, Alexander; DeFlorio, Michael J.; Shulgina, Tamara; Delle Monache, Luca; Subramanian, Aneesh C.; Corringham, Thomas W.; Ralph, F. Martin (2020). Data from: Four Atmospheric Circulation Regimes Over the North Pacific and Their Relationship to California Precipitation on Daily to Seasonal Timescales. UC San Diego Library Digital Collections. https://doi.org/10.6075/J0154FJJ
Is Supplement To: Guirguis, K., Gershunov, A., DeFlorio, M. J., Shulgina, T., Delle Monache, L., Subramanian, A. C., et al.. ( 2020). Four Atmospheric Circulation Regimes Over the North Pacific and Their Relationship to California Precipitation on Daily to Seasonal Timescales. Geophysical Research Letters, 47, e2020GL087609. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087609 References: Barnston, A.G. and Livezey, R.E. (1987) Classifications, Seasonality, and Persistence of Low-Frequency Atmospheric Circulation Patterns. Monthly Weather Review, 115, 1083-1126. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0493(1987)1152.0.CO;2 Guirguis, K., A. Gershunov, R.E.S. Clemesha, T. Shulgina, A. C. Subramanian, and F.M. Ralph, 2018: Circulation Drivers of Atmospheric Rivers at the North American West Coast. Geophys. Res. Lett. http://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL079249 Kalnay, E., et al., 1996: The NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis project, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 77(3), 437–471. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0477(1996)0772.0.CO;2
This dataset contains four indices of daily atmospheric variability associated with four circulation regimes over the North Pacific (Figure 1), which have been identified as essential drivers of atmospheric river landfall variability and California precipitation. The circulation regimes were derived using varimax rotated EOF analysis applied to 500 mb geopotential height (G500) anomalies over a domain spanning the northern Pacific Ocean and the western US. The corresponding principal components (PCs) were obtained by projecting the original G500 data onto each of the rotated EOFs, therefore the resulting PCs describe the historical temporal daily evolution of the four circulation regimes. These patterns are named according to their geographic centers of action as follows: Baja-Pacific (BP), Alaskan-Pacific (AP), Canadian-Pacific (CP), and Offshore-California (OC), which are collectively known as the North Pacific-4 (NP4) modes. The indices provided give the daily amplitude of each PC normalized by the standard deviation of the daily distribution. The dataset covers the most active part of the California precipitation season (November-February) over the 1948-2017 record. The source G500 data are from NCEP/NCAR global Reanalysis (Kalnay et al. 1996). This dataset was derived using established methodology for identifying teleconnection patterns (e.g. Barnston and Livezey, 1987).
Type
Dataset
Language
English
Subject
Atmospheric rivers
Hydrologic extremes
Climate variability
California precipitation
Water resources
El Niño
West (U.S.)
North Pacific Ocean
California
Place
West (U.S.)
North Pacific Ocean
California

About the collections in Calisphere

Learn more about the collections in Calisphere. View our statement on digital primary resources.

Copyright, permissions, and use

If you're wondering about permissions and what you can do with this item, a good starting point is the "rights information" on this page. See our terms of use for more tips.

Share your story

Has Calisphere helped you advance your research, complete a project, or find something meaningful? We'd love to hear about it; please send us a message.

Explore related content on Calisphere: