California Getting Wetter to the North, Drier to the South: Natural Variability or Climate Change?

Climate

Dan Killam¹  Ann Bui⁴  Steve LaDochy²  Pedro Ramirez²  Joshua Willis³ 

[1] Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA; E-Mail:;Department of Geosciences & Environment, California State University, Los Angeles, CA 90032, USA; E-Mail:;Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA; E-Mails:;Biological Sciences Department, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA 91768, USA; E-Mail:

关键词: precipitation trends;    climate change;    California climate;   

DOI  :  10.3390/cli2030168

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Current climate change projections anticipate that global warming trends will lead to changes in the distribution and intensity of precipitation at a global level. However, few studies have corroborated these model-based results using historical precipitation records at a regional level, especially in our study region, California. In our analyses of 14 long-term precipitation records representing multiple climates throughout the state, we find northern and central regions increasing in precipitation while southern regions are drying. Winter precipitation is increasing in all regions, while other seasons show mixed results. Rain intensity has not changed since the 1920s. While Sacramento shows over 3 more days of rain per year, Los Angeles has almost 4 less days per year in the last century. Both the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) greatly influence the California precipitation record. The climate change signal in the precipitation records remains unclear as annual variability overwhelms the precipitation trends.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.