Decadal and Paleo-climate Research Leading to Longer-term Prediction for the Great Salt Lake Hydrological Cycle
Location
ECC 216
Event Website
http://water.usu.edu/
Start Date
4-3-2012 2:50 PM
End Date
4-3-2012 3:10 PM
Description
This presentation demonstrates how tree ring-reconstructed climate variables may assist in decadal prediction for the Intermountain West. A series of recent studies identified a pronounced lagged relationship between the Great Salt Lake’s (GSL) elevation and the central tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures (SST) at the decadal timescale. Using this physical relationship, a principal component analysis of historical time series of SST and local precipitation (P) was used in the construction of a statistical model to predict first the GSL elevation tendency and, from there, the GSL elevation. The combined statistical-dynamical model was able to replicate and forecast turnarounds in the GSL elevation, that is, where prolonged increasing trends were followed by persistent decreases and vice versa. The coupling of the remote climate forcing and local hydrological response is somewhat different from previous nonparametric, nonlinear time series methods developed for shorter-term (1–2 year) forecasts of the GSL volume. Moreover, by not accounting for interannual variability in the model, a forecast for up to 8 years was feasible and was shown to intersect the 2009 and 2010 observations of the GSL elevation. Tree ring-derived proxy records have the potential to further improve the prediction of the GSL elevation, as well as the Great Basin hydrological cycle.
Decadal and Paleo-climate Research Leading to Longer-term Prediction for the Great Salt Lake Hydrological Cycle
ECC 216
This presentation demonstrates how tree ring-reconstructed climate variables may assist in decadal prediction for the Intermountain West. A series of recent studies identified a pronounced lagged relationship between the Great Salt Lake’s (GSL) elevation and the central tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures (SST) at the decadal timescale. Using this physical relationship, a principal component analysis of historical time series of SST and local precipitation (P) was used in the construction of a statistical model to predict first the GSL elevation tendency and, from there, the GSL elevation. The combined statistical-dynamical model was able to replicate and forecast turnarounds in the GSL elevation, that is, where prolonged increasing trends were followed by persistent decreases and vice versa. The coupling of the remote climate forcing and local hydrological response is somewhat different from previous nonparametric, nonlinear time series methods developed for shorter-term (1–2 year) forecasts of the GSL volume. Moreover, by not accounting for interannual variability in the model, a forecast for up to 8 years was feasible and was shown to intersect the 2009 and 2010 observations of the GSL elevation. Tree ring-derived proxy records have the potential to further improve the prediction of the GSL elevation, as well as the Great Basin hydrological cycle.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/runoff/2012/AllAbstracts/24