Cool- and Warm-Season Precipitation Reconstructions over Western New Mexico

Precipitation over the southwestern United States exhibits distinctive seasonality, and contrasting ocean–atmospheric dynamics are involved in the interannual variability of cool- and warm-season totals. Tree-ring chronologies based on annual-ring widths of conifers in the southwestern United States...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of climate 2009-07, Vol.22 (13), p.3729-3750
Main Authors: Stahle, D. W., Cleaveland, M. K., Grissino-Mayer, H. D., Griffin, R. D., Fye, F. K., Therrell, M. D., Burnette, D. J., Meko, D. M., Diaz, J. Villanueva
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Climate change
Climatology. Bioclimatology. Climate change
Conifers
Dendroclimatology
Drought
Earth, ocean, space
Environmental conditions
Exact sciences and technology
External geophysics
Growth rings
Marine
Meteorology
Paleoclimatology
Precipitation
Rain
Rainy seasons
Seasons
Summer
Trees
Water in the atmosphere (humidity, clouds, evaporation, precipitation)
Winter
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Summary:Precipitation over the southwestern United States exhibits distinctive seasonality, and contrasting ocean–atmospheric dynamics are involved in the interannual variability of cool- and warm-season totals. Tree-ring chronologies based on annual-ring widths of conifers in the southwestern United States are well correlated with accumulated precipitation and have previously been used to reconstruct cool-season and annual precipitation totals. However, annual-ring-width chronologies cannot typically be used to derive a specific record of summer monsoon-season precipitation. Some southwestern conifers exhibit a clear anatomical transition from the earlywood and latewood components of the annual ring, and these exactly dated subannual ring components can be measured separately and used as unique proxies of cool- and warm-season precipitation and their associated large-scale ocean–atmospheric dynamics. Two 2139-yr-long reconstructions of cool- (November–May) and early-warm season (July) precipitation have been developed from ancient conifers and relict wood at El Malpais National Monument, New Mexico. Both reconstructions have been verified on independent precipitation data and reproduce the spatial correlation patterns detected in the large-scale SST and 500-mb height fields using instrumental precipitation data from New Mexico. Above-average precipitation in the cool-season reconstruction is related to El Niño conditions and to the positive phase of the Pacific decadal oscillation. Above-average precipitation in July is related to the onset of the North American monsoon over New Mexico and with anomalies in the 500-mb height field favoring moisture advection into the Southwest from the North Pacific, the Gulf of California, and the Gulf of Mexico. Cool- and warm-season precipitation totals are not correlated on an interannual basis in the 74-yr instrumental or 2139-yr reconstructed records, but wet winter–spring extremes tend to be followed by dry conditions in July and very dry winters tend to be followed by wet Julys in the reconstructions. This antiphasing of extremes could arise from the hypothesized cool- to early-warm-season change in the sign of large-scale ocean–atmospheric forcing of southwestern precipitation, from the negative land surface feedback hypothesis in which winter–spring precipitation and snow cover reduce surface warming and delay the onset of the monsoon, or perhaps from an interaction of both large-scale and regional forcing. Episodes of
ISSN:0894-8755
1520-0442
DOI:10.1175/2008JCLI2752.1