1988 summer drought over the Great Plains: some causes and predictions
EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT):The 1988 summer drought over much of the United States is described in terms of hemispheric mid-tropospheric flow patterns, temperature and precipitation anomalies, and sea surface temperature patterns. This drought was similar to earlier Great Plains droughts, although spatially more extensive than most. Three attempts to predict this drought from antecedent spring were moderately successful, though no one anticipated its severity and extent. ... A modified barotropic model iterating from a mean summer estimate of seasonal forcing from the May mid-tropospheric height pattern was reasonably successful in forecasting the drought. Sea surface temperature indications show that cold water (La Niña) along the equator subsequent to the 1987 El Niño, while contributory, cannot be considered a principal cause of the drought, since earlier cold water episodes did not produce drought, and other drought episodes occurred in the absence of cold equatorial waters.
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| Format: | conference_item biblioteca |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
1990-02
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| Subjects: | Atmospheric Sciences, Oceanography, PACLIM, |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1834/31380 |
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