Climate-driven changes in the predictability of seasonal precipitation

Phong V.V. Le; James T. Randerson; Rebecca Willett; Stephen Wright; Padhraic Smyth; Clément Guilloteau; Antonios Mamalakis; Efi Foufoula-Georgiou

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-39463-9

Climate-driven changes in the predictability of seasonal precipitation

Phong V.V. Le, James T. Randerson, Rebecca Willett, Stephen Wright, Padhraic Smyth, Clément Guilloteau, Antonios Mamalakis, Efi Foufoula-Georgiou

Watershed Systems Modeling

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Climate-driven changes in precipitation amounts and their seasonal variability are expected in many continental-scale regions during the remainder of the 21st century. However, much less is known about future changes in the predictability of seasonal precipitation, an important earth system property relevant for climate adaptation. Here, on the basis of CMIP6 models that capture the present-day teleconnections between seasonal precipitation and previous-season sea surface temperature (SST), we show that climate change is expected to alter the SST-precipitation relationships and thus our ability to predict seasonal precipitation by 2100. Specifically, in the tropics, seasonal precipitation predictability from SSTs is projected to increase throughout the year, except the northern Amazonia during boreal winter. Concurrently, in the extra-tropics predictability is likely to increase in central Asia during boreal spring and winter. The altered predictability, together with enhanced interannual variability of seasonal precipitation, poses new opportunities and challenges for regional water management.

Original language	English
Article number	3822
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	14
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39463-9
State	Published - Dec 2023

Funding

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant number DMS-1839336 as part of the Transdisciplinary Research in Principles of Data Science (TRIPODS) program. The research was also partially supported by NASA through the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission program (Grant 80NSSC22K0597). P.V.V.L. acknowledges additional support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research, Environmental System Sciences (ESS) program through the IDEAS-Watersheds project. J.T.R. acknowledges additional support from the U.S. DOE Office of Science RUBISCO Science Focus Area and NASA’s Modeling Analysis and Prediction (MAP) program (Grant 80NSSC21K1362).

Funders	Funder number
Biological and Environmental Research, Environmental System Sciences
National Science Foundation	DMS-1839336
U.S. Department of Energy
National Aeronautics and Space Administration	80NSSC22K0597
Office of Science	80NSSC21K1362
European Social Fund

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1038/s41467-023-39463-9

Cite this

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abstract = "Climate-driven changes in precipitation amounts and their seasonal variability are expected in many continental-scale regions during the remainder of the 21st century. However, much less is known about future changes in the predictability of seasonal precipitation, an important earth system property relevant for climate adaptation. Here, on the basis of CMIP6 models that capture the present-day teleconnections between seasonal precipitation and previous-season sea surface temperature (SST), we show that climate change is expected to alter the SST-precipitation relationships and thus our ability to predict seasonal precipitation by 2100. Specifically, in the tropics, seasonal precipitation predictability from SSTs is projected to increase throughout the year, except the northern Amazonia during boreal winter. Concurrently, in the extra-tropics predictability is likely to increase in central Asia during boreal spring and winter. The altered predictability, together with enhanced interannual variability of seasonal precipitation, poses new opportunities and challenges for regional water management.",

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AU - Guilloteau, Clément

AU - Mamalakis, Antonios

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Climate-driven changes in the predictability of seasonal precipitation

Abstract

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UN SDGs

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