We found a match
Your institution may have rights to this item. Sign in to continue.
- Title
Decadal predictability of soil water, vegetation, and wildfire frequency over North America.
- Authors
Chikamoto, Yoshimitsu; Timmermann, Axel; Stevenson, Samantha; DiNezio, Pedro; Langford, Sally
- Abstract
The potential decadal predictability of land hydrological and biogeochemical variables in North America is examined using a 900-year-long pre-industrial control simulation, conducted with the NCAR Community Earth System Model (CESM) version 1.0.3. The leading modes of simulated North American precipitation and soil water storage are characterized essentially by qualitatively similar meridional seesaw patterns associated with the activity of the westerly jet. Whereas the corresponding precipitation variability can be described as a white noise stochastic process, power spectra of vertically integrated soil water exhibit significant redness on timescales of years to decades, since the predictability of soil water storage arises mostly from the integration of precipitation variability. As a result, damped persistence hindcasts following a 1st order Markov process are skillful with lead times of up to several years. This potential multi-year skill estimate is consistent with ensemble hindcasts conducted with the CESM for various initial conditions. Our control simulation further suggests that decadal variations in soil water storage also affect vegetation and wildfire occurrences. The long-term potential predictability of soil water variations in combination with the slow regrowth of vegetation after major disruptions leads to enhanced predictability on decadal timescales for vegetation, terrestrial carbon stock, and fire frequency, in particular in the Southern United States (US)/Mexico region. By contrast, the prediction skill of fire frequency in the Northern US is limited to 1 year. Our results demonstrate that skillful decadal predictions of soil water storage, carbon stock, and fire frequency are feasible with proper initialization of soil conditions. Although the potential predictability in our idealized modeling framework would overestimate the real predictability of the coupled climate-land-vegetation system, the decadal climate prediction may become beneficial for water resource management, forestry, and agriculture.
- Subjects
NORTH America; SOIL moisture; WILDFIRES; BIOGEOCHEMISTRY; METEOROLOGICAL precipitation
- Publication
Climate Dynamics, 2015, Vol 45, Issue 7/8, p2213
- ISSN
0930-7575
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s00382-015-2469-5