Future loss of Arctic sea-ice cover could drive a substantial decrease in California’s rainfall

Ivana Cvijanovic; Benjamin D. Santer; Céline Bonfils; Donald D. Lucas; John C. H. Chiang; Susan Zimmerman

doi:10.1038/s41467-017-01907-4

Nature Communications (Dec 2017)

Future loss of Arctic sea-ice cover could drive a substantial decrease in California’s rainfall

Ivana Cvijanovic,
Benjamin D. Santer,
Céline Bonfils,
Donald D. Lucas,
John C. H. Chiang,
Susan Zimmerman

Affiliations

Ivana Cvijanovic: Climate Modeling and Analysis, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Benjamin D. Santer: Climate Modeling and Analysis, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Céline Bonfils: Climate Modeling and Analysis, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Donald D. Lucas: Climate Modeling and Analysis, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
John C. H. Chiang: Department of Geography and Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center, University of California
Susan Zimmerman: Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-01907-4
Journal volume & issue: Vol. 8, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

Read online

Persistent atmospheric ridging in the North Pacific steered storms away and led to the California drought of 2012-16. Here the authors use simulations to show that sea-ice changes trigger reorganization of tropical convection resulting in drying over California.

Published in Nature Communications

ISSN: 2041-1723 (Online)
Publisher: Nature Portfolio
Country of publisher: United Kingdom
LCC subjects: Science
Website: https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

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