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Assessing the climate‐scale variability of atmospheric rivers affecting western North America

American Geophysical Union (AGU) | August 3rd, 2017

Summary

We have created a new seven‐decade‐long catalog of atmospheric river behavior land‐falling upon the west coast of North America. The catalog has been validated agai

We have created a new seven‐decade‐long catalog of atmospheric river behavior land‐falling upon the west coast of North America. The catalog has been validated against independent precipitation observations to ensure that the atmospheric rivers represented therein are associated with extreme orographic precipitation. Our results clearly delineate a prominent role for atmospheric rivers in California's hydroclimate. Atmospheric river variability has been particularly important in the recent California drought as well as its most recent lapse. We also detect a long‐term increasing trend in water vapor transport impinging on the west coast of North America associated with atmospheric rivers and overall wintertime water vapor transport associated with climate warming. Our results, moreover, suggest that potential predictability of seasonal behavior of atmospheric rivers may hinge on sources of climatic variability somewhat different from that of total water vapor transport.

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Atmospheric river activity during the late Holocene exceeds modern range of variability in California

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | April 25th, 2024

Summary

Atmospheric rivers are associated with some of the largest flood-producing precipitation events in western North America, particularly California. Insight into past extre

Atmospheric rivers are associated with some of the largest flood-producing precipitation events in western North America, particularly California. Insight into past extreme precipitation can be reconstructed from sedimentary archives on millennial timescales. Here we document atmospheric river activity near Leonard Lake, California, over 3,200 years, using a key metric of atmospheric river intensity, that is silicon/aluminum enriched layers that are highly correlated with modern records of integrated vapor transport. The late twentieth century had the highest median integrated vapor transport since the onset of the Medieval Climate Anomaly, with integrated vapor transport increasing during the Little Ice Age. The reconstruction suggests California has experienced pluvial episodes that exceeded any in the meteorologic instrumental era, with the largest episodes occurring two and three millennia ago. These results provide critical data to help avoid underestimation of potential risks and aid future planning scenarios.

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Atmospheric River Precipitation Enhanced by Climate Change: A Case Study of the Storm That Contributed to California's Oroville Dam Crisis

American Geophysical Union (AGU) | February 9th, 2022

Summary

California's reliance on precipitation from atmospheric rivers is expected to increase as our climate warms. Understanding how climate change is impacting this increasing

California's reliance on precipitation from atmospheric rivers is expected to increase as our climate warms. Understanding how climate change is impacting this increasingly dominant mode of precipitation is vitally important for water-resource management throughout the state, across the North American West Coast, and for other similarly impacted regions. Our case study of an impactful atmospheric river from early February 2017 that contributed to the Oroville Dam crisis in Northern California, modeled under preindustrial, present-day, mid-, and late-21st century unabatedly warming environments, demonstrates an overwhelming increase in precipitation throughout the event. This particular storm was comprised of two distinct pulses, and while both pulses of the storm are enhanced in the warmer future epochs, the estimated precipitation increases are disproportionately higher for the second pulse due to larger increases in temperature and moisture. Our results therefore suggest that not all atmospheric rivers are similarly affected by climate change and point to specific directions for relevant future research.

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Atmospheric Rivers as Drought Busters on the U.S. West Coast

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | April 25th, 2013

Summary

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) have, in recent years, been recognized as the cause of the large majority of major floods in rivers all along the U.S. West Coast and as the sour

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) have, in recent years, been recognized as the cause of the large majority of major floods in rivers all along the U.S. West Coast and as the source of 30%–50% of all precipitation in the same region. The present study surveys the frequency with which ARs have played a critical role as a common cause of the end of droughts on the West Coast. This question was based on the observation that, in most cases, droughts end abruptly as a result of the arrival of an especially wet month or, more exactly, a few very large storms. This observation is documented using both Palmer Drought Severity Index and 6-month Standardized Precipitation Index measures of drought occurrence for climate divisions across the conterminous United States from 1895 to 2010. When the individual storm sequences that contributed most to the wet months that broke historical West Coast droughts from 1950 to 2010 were evaluated, 33%–74% of droughts were broken by the arrival of landfalling AR storms. In the Pacific Northwest, 60%–74%of all persistent drought endings have been brought about by the arrival of AR storms. In California, about 33%–40% of all persistent drought endings have been brought about by landfalling AR storms, with more localized low pressure systems responsible for many of the remaining drought breaks.

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Atmospheric rivers cause warm winters and extreme heat events

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | December 18th, 2024

Summary

Click here for a plain language summary and interview with the authors by Yale News.

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Atmospheric rivers drive flood damages in the western United States

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) | December 4th, 2019

Summary

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are extratropical storms that produce extreme precipitation on the west coasts of the world’s major landmasses. In the United States, ARs caus

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are extratropical storms that produce extreme precipitation on the west coasts of the world’s major landmasses. In the United States, ARs cause significant flooding, yet their economic impacts have not been quantified. Here, using 40 years of data from the National Flood Insurance Program, we show that ARs are the primary drivers of flood damages in the western United States. Using a recently developed AR scale, which varies from category 1 to 5, we find that flood damages increase exponentially with AR intensity and duration: Each increase in category corresponds to a roughly 10-fold increase in damages. Category 4 and 5 ARs cause median damages in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, respectively. Rising population, increased development, and climate change are expected to worsen the risk of AR-driven flood damage in future decades.

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Atmospheric rivers impact California's coastal water quality via extreme precipitation

Science of the Total Environment (Elsevier) | June 25th, 2019

Summary

Precipitation in California is projected to become more volatile: less frequent but more extreme as global warming pushes midlatitude frontal cyclones further poleward wh

Precipitation in California is projected to become more volatile: less frequent but more extreme as global warming pushes midlatitude frontal cyclones further poleward while bolstering the atmospheric rivers (ARs), which tend to produce the region's extreme rainfall. Pollutant accumulation and delivery to coastal waters can be expected to increase, as lengthening dry spells will be increasingly punctuated by more extreme precipitation events. Coastal pollution exposes human populations to high levels of fecal bacteria and associated pathogens, which can cause a variety of health impacts. Consequently, studying the impact of atmospheric rivers as the mechanism generating pulses of water pollution in coastal areas is relevant for public health and in the context of climate change. We aimed to quantify the links between precipitation events and water quality in order to explore meteorological causes as first steps toward effective early warning systems for the benefit of population health in California and beyond. We used historical gridded daily precipitation and weekly multiple fecal bacteria indicators at ~500 monitoring locations in California's coastal waters to identify weekly associations between precipitation and water quality during 2003–09 using canonical correlation analysis to account for the nested/clustered nature of longitudinal data. We then quantified, using a recently published catalog of atmospheric rivers, the proportion of coastal pollution events attributable to ARs. Association between precipitation and fecal bacteria was strongest in Southern California. Over two-thirds of coastal water pollution spikes exceeding one standard deviation were associated with ARs. This work highlights the importance of skillful AR landfall predictions in reducing vulnerability to extreme weather improving resilience of human populations in a varying and changing climate. Quantifying the impacts of ARs on waterborne diseases is important for planning effective preventive strategies for public health.

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Atmospheric Rivers Impacting Northern California Exhibit a Quasi-Decadal Frequency

American Geophysical Union (AGU) | July 26th, 2021

Summary

In Northern California, much of the precipitation and surface water comes from atmospheric rivers–corridors of moisture transport from the tropics. The frequency of atm

In Northern California, much of the precipitation and surface water comes from atmospheric rivers–corridors of moisture transport from the tropics. The frequency of atmospheric rivers is cyclical, with periods of water surplus and deficit in the region that repeat every 10–17 years. While many social and political factors influence water resource distribution, understanding the climate factors that regulate water availability is important for managing water in the future. Using data from observations and modeling experiments, the pronounced wet/dry cycle in this area of the Western United States is mainly attributed to regular fluctuations in sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean. This analysis provides a potential source of predictability for atmospheric river frequency, and thus water availability, years before a winter season.

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Atmospheric rivers impacting western North America in a world with climate intervention

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | May 18th, 2022

Summary

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) impacting western North America are analyzed under climate intervention applying stratospheric aerosol injections (SAI) using simulations produce

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) impacting western North America are analyzed under climate intervention applying stratospheric aerosol injections (SAI) using simulations produced by the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model. Sulfur dioxide injections are strategically placed to maintain present-day global, interhemispheric, and equator-to-pole surface temperatures between 2020 and 2100 using a high forcing climate scenario. Three science questions are addressed: (1) How will western North American ARs change by the end of the century with SAI applied, (2) How is this different from 2020 conditions, and (3) How will the results differ with no future climate intervention. Under SAI, ARs are projected to increase by the end of the 21st century for southern California and decrease in the Pacific Northwest and coastal British Columbia, following changes to the low-level wind. Compared to 2020 conditions, the increase in ARs is not significant. The character of AR precipitation changes under geoengineering results in fewer extreme rainfall events and more moderate ones.

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Atmospheric rivers in 20 year weather and climate simulations: A multi-model, global evaluation

American Geophysical Union (AGU) | June 1st, 2017

Summary

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are narrow, elongated, synoptic jets of water vapor that play importantroles in the global water cycle and meteorological/hydrological extremes.

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are narrow, elongated, synoptic jets of water vapor that play importantroles in the global water cycle and meteorological/hydrological extremes. Increasing evidence shows that ARs have signatures and impacts in many regions across different continents. However, global-scalecharacterizations of AR representations in weather and climate models have been very limited. Using a recently developed AR detection algorithm oriented for global applications, the representation of AR activities in multi-decade weather/climate simulations is evaluated. The algorithm is applied to 6-hourly(daily) integrated water vapor transport (IVT) from 22 (2) global weather/climate models that participated inthe Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment Atmospheric System Study–Year of Tropical Convection Multimodel Experiment, including four models with ocean-atmosphere coupling and two models with super parameterization. Multiple reanalysis products are used as references to help quantify model errors inthe context of reanalysis uncertainty. Model performance is examined for key aspects of ARs (frequency,intensity, geometry, and seasonality), with the focus on identifying and understanding systematic errors insimulated ARs. The results highlight the range of model performances relative to reanalysis uncertainty inrepresenting the most basic features of ARs. Among the 17 metrics considered, AR frequency, zonal IVT, fractional zonal circumference, fractional total meridional IVT, and three seasonality metrics have consistently large errors across all models. Possible connections between AR simulation qualities and aspects of model configurations are discussed. Despite the lack of a monotonic relationship, the importance of model horizontal resolution to the overall quality of AR simulation is suggested by the evaluation results.

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