Identification

Title

Attributing the U.S. Southwest's recent shift Into drier conditions

Abstract

The U.S. Southwest experienced a strong hydroclimate trend from the 1980s to the 2010s, from cool and wet to warm and dry conditions. Attribution of this trend is challenging due to the influence of internal variability but desired by water managers eager to plan for robust signals of climate change in this water-scarce region. Here we use an empirical method based on constructed circulation analogues to assess the contribution of atmospheric circulation variability to the recent observed hydroclimate trend. Consistent with other studies, we find the observed precipitation trend from 1983 to 2012 to be mainly due to internal atmospheric circulation variability that is driven in part by decadal-scale tropical Pacific sea surface temperature changes. Removing this internal dynamical component brings the observed precipitation trend into closer agreement with the anthropogenically forced response in climate models, demonstrating progress toward an integrated perspective on climate change attribution.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7k93bb8

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2018-06-28T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact