Identification

Title

Predictable patterns of seasonal atmospheric river variability over North America during winter

Abstract

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are elongated areas of pronounced atmospheric water vapor transport that play an important role in the hydrological cycle over North America during winter. We investigate the sources of winter seasonal AR predictability over North America using average predictability time (APT) analysis. The skill of seasonal AR frequency predictions, in dynamical model forecasts provided by the Seamless System for Prediction and Earth System Research, is nearly entirely attributable to three physically interpretable APT modes that together represent about 19% of the total seasonal AR frequency variance. These three modes represent the AR response to the El Niño‐Southern Oscillation, anthropogenic forcing and equatorial heating over the eastern flank of the western Pacific warm pool, respectively. We further show that these three modes, calculated from AR frequency, explain nearly all winter seasonal precipitation forecast skill over North America.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7zw1rbr

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

2025-04-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

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Constraints related to access and use

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Use constraints

<span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;font-style:normal;" data-sheets-root="1">Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</span>

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