Identification

Title

Atmospheric Rivers are responsible for cyclicity in Sierra Nevada precipitation

Abstract

Cool-season (November-March) precipitation contributes critically to California's water resources and flood risk. In the Sierra Nevada, approximately half of cool-season precipitation is derived from a small proportion of storms classified as atmospheric rivers (ARs). The frequency and intensity of ARs are highly variable from year to year and unreliable climate teleconnections limit forecasting. However, previous research provides intriguing evidence of cycles with biennial (2.2 years) and decadal (10-20 years) periodicities in Sierra Nevada cool-season precipitation, suggesting it is not purely stochastic. To identify the source of this cyclicity, we decompose daily precipitation records (1949-2022) into contributions from ARs versus non-ARs, as well as into variations in frequency and intensity. We find that the biennial and decadal spectral peaks in Sierra Nevada precipitation totals are entirely dueto precipitation delivered by ARs, and primarily due to variations in the frequency of days with AR precipitation. While total non-AR precipitation correlates with sea surface temperature (SST) and atmospheric pressure patterns associated with the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, AR precipitation shows no consistent remote teleconnections at any periodicity. Supporting this finding, atmospheric simulations forced by observed SSTs do not reproduce the biennial or decadal precipitation variations identified in observations. These results, combined with the lack of long-term stable cycles in previously published tree-ring reconstructions, suggest that the observed biennial and decadal quasi-cyclicity in Sierra Nevada precipitation is unreliable as a forecasting tool.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7cn783d

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

2024-03-01T00:00:00Z

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