Contribution of temperature and precipitation anomalies to the California drought during 2012–2015

Details

• Journal Title:
  Geophysical Research Letters
• Personal Author:
  Luo, Lifeng ; Apps, Deanna ; Arcand, Samuel ; Xu, Huating ; Pan, Ming ; Hoerling, Martin
• NOAA Program & Office:
  OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; ESRL (Earth System Research Laboratory) ; PSL (Physical Sciences Laboratory)
• Description:
  The recent multiyear drought over California was characterized by large precipitation deficits and abnormally high temperatures during both wet and dry seasons. This study investigates and quantifies the contributions of precipitation and temperature anomalies to the development of the multiyear drought with a set of modeling experiments where the anomalies are either removed or randomly replaced with other historical observations. The study reveals that precipitation deficits have been largely responsible for producing the extreme agricultural drought (i.e., large soil moisture deficits) while warmer temperatures have only marginally intensified the drought. However, the warmer temperatures over the high‐elevation areas during the wet season have contributed equally or more than the precipitation deficits to the reduction of snowpack. The interplay between temperature and precipitation anomalies in space and time also appears to be important for the drought development.
• Subjects:
  • Droughts
• Source:
  Geophysical Research Letters 44(7): 3184-3192, 2017
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL072027
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  Grant no. NA12OAR4310081
• Place as Subject:
  California
• Rights Information:
  Other
• Compliance:
  Submitted
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/28106/noaa_28106_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.36 MB]
• Collection(s):
  Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR)
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:8675e4b96e56260edc0a411ad4fb9b748d4b3da2babcdd184ec0cd2f7acc6492