scholarly journals Extreme precipitation drives groundwater recharge: the Northern High Plains Aquifer, central United States, 1950–2010

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (14) ◽  
pp. 2533-2545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jien Zhang ◽  
Benjamin S. Felzer ◽  
Tara J. Troy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Groundwater Recharge ◽  
Extreme Precipitation ◽  
High Plains ◽  
High Plains Aquifer ◽  
Central United States

scholarly journals Changes in Intense Precipitation over the Central United States

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel Ya. Groisman ◽  
Richard W. Knight ◽  
Thomas R. Karl
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Extreme Precipitation ◽  
Heavy Precipitation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Extreme Precipitation Events ◽  
Intense Precipitation ◽  
Central United States ◽  
Extreme Rain ◽  
Rain Events ◽  
Precipitation Events

Abstract In examining intense precipitation over the central United States, the authors consider only days with precipitation when the daily total is above 12.7 mm and focus only on these days and multiday events constructed from such consecutive precipitation days. Analyses show that over the central United States, a statistically significant redistribution in the spectra of intense precipitation days/events during the past decades has occurred. Moderately heavy precipitation events (within a 12.7–25.4 mm day−1 range) became less frequent compared to days and events with precipitation totals above 25.4 mm. During the past 31 yr (compared to the 1948–78 period), significant increases occurred in the frequency of “very heavy” (the daily rain events above 76.2 mm) and extreme precipitation events (defined as daily and multiday rain events with totals above 154.9 mm or 6 in.), with up to 40% increases in the frequency of days and multiday extreme rain events. Tropical cyclones associated with extreme precipitation do not significantly contribute to the changes reported in this study. With time, the internal precipitation structure (e.g., mean and maximum hourly precipitation rates within each preselected range of daily or multiday event totals) did not noticeably change. Several possible causes of observed changes in intense precipitation over the central United States are discussed and/or tested.

scholarly journals Effects of Irrigation on Summer Precipitation over the United States

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (10) ◽  
pp. 3541-3558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisi Pei ◽  
Nathan Moore ◽  
Shiyuan Zhong ◽  
Anthony D. Kendall ◽  
Zhiqiu Gao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Irrigation Water ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Plains ◽  
Pressure System ◽  
Typical Application ◽  
Central United States ◽  
Mean Square Errors

Abstract Irrigation’s effects on precipitation during an exceptionally dry summer (June–August 2012) in the United States were quantified by incorporating a novel dynamic irrigation scheme into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model. The scheme is designed to represent a typical application strategy for farmlands across the conterminous United States (CONUS) and a satellite-derived irrigation map was incorporated into the WRF-Noah-Mosaic module to realistically trigger the irrigation. Results show that this new irrigation approach can dynamically generate irrigation water amounts that are in close agreement with the actual irrigation water amounts across the high plains (HP), where the prescribed scheme best matches real-world irrigation practices. Surface energy and water budgets have been substantially altered by irrigation, leading to modified large-scale atmospheric circulations. In the studied dry summer, irrigation was found to strengthen the dominant interior high pressure system over the southern and central United States and deepen the trough over the upper Midwest. For the HP and central United States, the rainfall amount is slightly reduced over irrigated areas, likely as a result of a reduction in both local convection and large-scale moisture convergence resulting from interactions and feedbacks between the land surface and atmosphere. In areas downwind of heavily irrigated regions, precipitation is enhanced, resulting in a 20%–100% reduction in the dry biases (relative to the observations) simulated over a large portion of the downwind areas without irrigation in the model. The introduction of irrigation reduces the overall mean biases and root-mean-square errors in the simulated daily precipitation over the CONUS.

scholarly journals Flash Drought as Captured by Reanalysis Data: Disentangling the Contributions of Precipitation Deficit and Excess Evapotranspiration

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 1241-1258 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. D. Koster ◽  
S. D. Schubert ◽  
H. Wang ◽  
S. P. Mahanama ◽  
Anthony M. DeAngelis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Extreme Precipitation ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Reanalysis Data ◽  
Land System ◽  
Central United States ◽  
Surface Drying

Abstract Flash droughts—uncharacteristically rapid dryings of the land system—are naturally associated with extreme precipitation deficits. Such precipitation deficits, however, do not tell the whole story, for land surface drying can be exacerbated by anomalously high evapotranspiration (ET) rates driven by anomalously high temperatures (e.g., during heat waves), anomalously high incoming radiation (e.g., from reduced cloudiness), and other meteorological anomalies. In this study, the relative contributions of precipitation and ET anomalies to flash drought generation in the Northern Hemisphere are quantified through the analysis of diagnostic fields contained within the MERRA-2 reanalysis product. Unique to the approach is the explicit treatment of soil moisture impacts on ET through relationships diagnosed from the reanalysis data; under this treatment, an ET anomaly that is negative relative to the local long-term climatological mean is still considered positive in terms of its contribution to a flash drought if it is high for the concurrent value of soil moisture. Maps produced in the analysis show the fraction of flash drought production stemming specifically from ET anomalies and illustrate how ET anomalies for some droughts are related to temperature and radiation anomalies. While ET is found to have an important impact on flash drought production in the central United States and in parts of Russia known from past studies to be prone to heat wave–related drought, and while this impact does appear stronger during the onset (first several days) of flash droughts, overall the contribution of ET to these droughts is small relative to the contribution of precipitation deficit.

scholarly journals Potential climate change effects on groundwater recharge in the High Plains Aquifer, USA

2013 ◽  
Vol 49 (7) ◽  
pp. 3936-3951 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell S. Crosbie ◽  
Bridget R. Scanlon ◽  
Freddie S. Mpelasoka ◽  
Robert C. Reedy ◽  
John B. Gates ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Groundwater Recharge ◽  
High Plains ◽  
High Plains Aquifer ◽  
Climate Change Effects ◽  
Potential Climate Change

scholarly journals Groundwater Withdrawals Under Drought: Reconciling GRACE and Land Surface Models in the United States High Plains Aquifer

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (8) ◽  
pp. 5282-5299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wanshu Nie ◽  
Benjamin F. Zaitchik ◽  
Matthew Rodell ◽  
Sujay V. Kumar ◽  
Martha C. Anderson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Plains ◽  
Land Surface Models ◽  
High Plains Aquifer ◽  
Surface Models
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