Teleconnections:

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Teleconnections The Dominance of the Tropical
Pacific in Climate Change
George H. Taylor March, 2008
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Teleconnections

• Teleconnections means that weather changes at one
  location might be related to weather changes at
  other remote locations.

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Goal

• To understand climate and ocean variations over
  decadal- to century-scale time periods as they
  relate to
• 1. Precipitation
• 2. Temperature
• 3. Salmon returns
• 4. Glaciers

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What Causes Climate to Change?
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For me, it started with Bill Gray 1993 AMS
Conference on Hydrometeorology
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Bill Gray, AMS Conference, 1993
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The ENSO Connection
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ENSO Warm Event Teleconnections
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The Salmon Connection
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1995 Good bye Dry Cycle, Hello, Wet1996 The
Discovery of PDO1996 Salmon returns will
increase
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PDO -
PDO
Aleutian low pressure center
Shifted westward
Shifted eastward
Storminess in the Gulf of Alaska
Increased
Decreased
Precipitation draining into estuaries
Increased
Decreased
Density difference across entrance sill
Decreased
Increased
Estuary currents
Fastest inflow mid-depth
Fastest inflow bottom
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Alaska Temperatures
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• Bakun index the wind-driven cross-shore
  component of surface
• Ekman transport

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• Chavez et al,
• Science,
• 10 Jan 2003

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• Chavez et al, Science, 10 Jan 2003

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• Peterson-Schwing
• GRL 2003

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Long-term Temperature Trends in Oregon
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Another problem compromised station locations
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A study of springtime mountain snowpack in the
Pacific Northwest showed widespread declines in
snowpack since 1950 at most locations with
largest declines at lower elevations indicating
temperature effects. Substantial declines (some
in excess of 50) were common in the Cascades,
especially in Oregon. Mote, Philip W., Martyn
Clark, and Alan F. Hamlet, 2004. Variability and
Trends in Mountain Snowpack in Western North
America. 15th Symposium on Global Change and
Climate Variations, Seattle, Washington.
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The Arctic
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• Polyakov, et al, 2003

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The Glaciers of Glacier Park
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Pederson, G.T., Fagre, D.B., Gray, S.T. and
Graumlich, L.J. 2004. Decadal-scale climate
drivers for glacial dynamics in Glacier National
Park, Montana, USA. Geophysical Research Letters
31 10.1029/2004GL019770.
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Conclusions
PDO and local May 1st SWE are negatively
correlated (r 0.764 p lt 0.001). we can
then use reconstructed values of the PDO as a
proxy for winter-accumulation potential for the
Jackson and Agassiz glaciers.
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What Causes Climate to Change?
1. PDO/ENSO
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What Causes Climate to Change?

• PDO/ENSO
• Other things

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The End
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