Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Drought in the Western United States in Relation to Oceanic Oscillations

Abstract:

Drought, a natural phenomenon that has affected western North America for millennia, is characterized by significant changes in precipitation with rapid shifts between wet and dry states. General Circulation Model projections indicate increased aridity in the 21^st century for the Western U.S., and as such the impact of drought will likely become more significant on the environment and the economy. In the pursuit of improving drought predictability, as well as increasing our ability to better characterize the onset of drought, we ask whether defined climate regime shift signals can be identified and if there are variations in this signal for different drought periods, and if so, whether these shifts may be periodic. Annual growth rings of precipitation sensitive trees in the upper and lower Colorado River Basin regions are analyzed using 1) edge detection filters to determine the timing and significance of climate regime induced precipitation shifts, 2) digital filters to identify long and short-term precipitation variability within the site mean chronologies, and 3) wavelet analysis to determine the presence of significant periodicities in the chronologies. Results show that the edge detection algorithms are successful in identifying significant shifts in climatic regimes, and wavelet analysis indicates that some of these shifts may be periodic, suggesting larger scale atmospheric circulation forcing on timescales of decades to centuries. These results are used to identify specific patterns and timing of drought over the upper and lower Colorado River Basins in relation to oceanic oscillations such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, and El Nino Southern Oscillation. Establishing a relationship between the timing and pattern of the drought and the timing of the oceanic oscillations can lead to improved drought predictability in this region and increase our ability to respond to the environmental and economic impacts of drought.