Session 2C Western North American Climate: Diagnosis, Prediction, and Impacts at Subseasonal to Multi-Decadal Scales

Monday, 13 January 2020: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM
151A (Boston Convention and Exhibition Center)
Host: 33rd Conference on Climate Variability and Change
Chair:
Emily Becker, NOAA, CPC, College Park, MD

Western North America (WNA) climate variations and changes can have substantial socio-economic impacts within and beyond the WNA region.  Some of the most pronounced variations and changes are associated with large scale anomalous atmospheric ridging or troughing over or near WNA that occurring at subseasonal to decadal scales.  These anomalies and their direct impacts can extend from the Alaska to Mexico, and from the northeast Pacific to eastern North America, and include, for example, anomalies in surface temperature, atmospheric river activity, precipitation, snow and ice melting, soil moisture, and ocean circulation.  These environmental anomalies in turn lead to impacts on, for example, the management of water resources, droughts, floods, wildfires, electric power generation, and fisheries.  The overall objectives of this session are to help develop a more comprehensive and integrated understanding of WNA climate variations and changes (especially the role of ridging / troughing events), promote collaborative efforts, and improve prediction and decision support.  We invite researchers, operational analysts and forecasters, decision support providers, and others to share their progress in identifying and predicting subseasonal to decadal WNA climate variations and changes.  We especially encourage presentations on WNA ridging and troughing events, and related anomalies and impacts.  These include, for example, investigations of: ridiculously resilient ridging; northeast Pacific sea surface temperature blobs; climate scale variations and changes in atmospheric rivers, Santa Ana events, wildfires, and coastal upwelling; and decision support for resource and emergency managers.  We welcome presentations from observational, theoretical, modeling, forecasting, and applied perspectives, such as studies of: links to El Nino – La Nina, Indian Ocean Dipole, Madden-Julian Oscillation, Arctic Oscillation, and climate change; low frequency wave dynamics, climate-weather interactions, hindcast and forecast skill assessments, multi-decadal projections, and applications of climate information in planning and management.

Papers:
10:30 AM
2C.1
Changes in Extreme Integrated Water Vapor Transport on the US West Coast in NA-CORDEX, and Relationship to Mountain and Inland Precipitation
Mimi Hughes, NOAA, Boulder, CO; and D. Swales, J. D. Scott, M. Alexander, K. Mahoney, and R. McCrary

10:45 AM
2C.2
Projections in Many Directions: Extracting Meaningful Guidance for Water Resources Planning in the Western United States from the NA-CORDEX GCM-RCM Ensemble
Kelly Mahoney, NOAA, Boulder, CO; and J. D. Scott, M. Alexander, M. Hughes, D. Swales, and R. McCrary

11:00 AM
2C.3
The Modulation of Natural Gas Through Winter Climate and Cyclone Variability
Jacob Stuivenvolt Allen, Utah State University, Logan, UT; Utah State Univ., Logan, UT; and S. Y. Wang

11:15 AM
2C.4
Influences and Impacts of Variability and Recent Collapse in Seasonal Bering Sea Ice Coverage
Richard Thoman Jr., University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK

11:30 AM
2C.5
Large-scale Drivers of Connected Atmospheric Rivers along the US West Coast
Meredith A. Fish, SIO, La Jolla, CA; and J. Done, A. M. Wilson, and F. M. Ralph

11:45 AM
2C.6
- Indicates paper has been withdrawn from meeting
- Indicates an Award Winner