Abstract This study examines the variability of annual-mean precipitation in eight AOGCMs and in observa-tions using empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs). The leading mode of precipitation variability in both models and observations is centered around the low-latitude western Pacific Ocean and Indi...
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| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.498.5991 http://faculty.geog.utoronto.ca/Harvey/Harvey/papers/Harvey (2003b_Control_run_patterns_of_precipitation_variab).pdf |
| Summary: | Abstract This study examines the variability of annual-mean precipitation in eight AOGCMs and in observa-tions using empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs). The leading mode of precipitation variability in both models and observations is centered around the low-latitude western Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean, and is associ-ated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The spatial pattern R2 correlations between model and observed EOF1 range from 0.12 to 0.61. In the obser-vations, the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) is highly correlated (R2 = 0.82) with the amplitude of precipita-tion EOF1, while model R 2 correlations range from 0.17 to 0.83. If grid points near to those used to compute the standard SOI are used to compute alternative SO indi-ces, the correlation with the amplitude of EOF1 ranges from 0.40 to 0.90 when based on the index that maxi-mizes the correlation. Spatial fields of the variation be-tween local precipitation and the SOI or the North Atlantic Oscillation Index are also computed for each model and compared with the observed fields. The model fields have many important similarities with the observed fields. 1 |
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