noaa-recon-21793
Wahl, et al., 2017, precipitation reconstruction for California
Wahl, E.R.; Diaz, H.F.; Vose, R.S.; Gross, W.S.
Wahl, et al., 2017, precipitation reconstruction for California
2017-04-10
NCDC-Paleoclimatology
ONLINE Files
Pending
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/21793
Investigator
E.R.
Wahl
Investigator
H.F.
Diaz
Investigator
R.S.
Vose
Investigator
W.S.
Gross
earth science
paleoclimate
climate reconstructions|tree ring
age,null,null,year Common Era,null,climate reconstructions|tree ring,null,null,N,null
earth science
paleoclimate
climate reconstructions|tree ring
precipitation,null,null,millimeter,Oct-Sep,climate reconstructions|tree ring,null,principal component analysis|regression analysis,N,medians of the ensemble; Truncated EOF-Principal Component Spatial Regression (TEOF-PCSR); calibration period 1916-1977; variance restored
earth science
paleoclimate
climate reconstructions|tree ring
latitude,null,null,degree north,null,climate reconstructions|tree ring,null,null,N,null
earth science
paleoclimate
climate reconstructions|tree ring
longitude,null,null,degree east,null,climate reconstructions|tree ring,null,null,N,null
earth science
paleoclimate
climate reconstructions|tree ring
precipitation,null,ensemble member,millimeter,Oct-Sep,climate reconstructions|tree ring,null,principal component analysis|regression analysis,N,null
earth science
paleoclimate
reconstructions
precipitation
geoscientificInformation
Precipitation Reconstruction
1571 AD
1977 AD
379 cal yr BP
-27 cal yr BP
Complete
32.5
42
-124.5
-114
Continent
North America
United States Of America
California
CA Climate Division 404>LATITUDE 36.5>LONGITUDE -121.5
Continent
North America
United States Of America
California
CA Climate Division 406>LATITUDE 33.75>LONGITUDE -117.75
Continent
North America
United States Of America
California
CA 0.5x0.5 degree grid>LATITUDE >LONGITUDE
Continent
North America
United States Of America
California
CA Climate Division 403>LATITUDE 40.5>LONGITUDE -120.5
Continent
North America
United States Of America
California
CA Climate Division 407>LATITUDE 35.25>LONGITUDE -116.5
Continent
North America
United States Of America
California
CA Climate Division 401>LATITUDE 40>LONGITUDE -123.5
Continent
North America
United States Of America
California
CA Climate Division 405>LATITUDE 36.75>LONGITUDE -119.75
Continent
North America
United States Of America
California
CA Climate Division 402>LATITUDE 40>LONGITUDE -121.5
None
Please cite original publication, online resource, dataset and publication DOIs (where available), and date accessed when using downloaded data. If there is no publication information, please cite investigator, title, online resource, and date accessed. The appearance of external links associated with a dataset does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Commerce/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of external Web sites or the information, products or services contained therein. For other than authorized activities, the Department of Commerce/NOAA does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. These links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this Department of Commerce/NOAA Web site.
English
DOC/NOAA/NESDIS/NCEI
National Centers for Environmental Information, NESDIS, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data
DATA Center Contact
Bruce
Bauer
bruce.a.bauer@noaa.gov
paleo@noaa.gov
303-497-6280
303-497-6513
325 Broadway, E/NE31
Boulder
CO
80305-3328
USA
online
ASCII
Eugene. R. Wahl, Henry F. Diaz, Russell S. Vose, Wendy S. Gross
2017
Multicentury Evaluation of Recovery from Strong Precipitation Deficits
Journal of Climate
39
15
6053-6063
10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0423.1
The recent dryness in California was unprecedented in the instrumental record. This article employs spatially explicit precipitation reconstructions for California in combination with instrumental data to provide perspective on this event since 1571. The period 2012–15 stands out as particularly extreme in the southern Central Valley and South Coast regions. which likely experienced unprecedented precipitation deficits over this time, apart from considerations of increasing temperatures and drought metrics that combine temperature and moisture information. Some areas lost more than two years’ average moisture delivery during these four years, and full recovery to long-term average moisture delivery could typically take up to several decades in the hardest-hit areas. These results highlight the value of the additional centuries of information provided by the paleo record, which indicates the shorter instrumental record may underestimate the statewide recovery time by over 30%. The extreme El Niño that occurred in 2015–16 ameliorated recovery in much of the northern half of the state, and since 1571 very-strong-to-extreme El Niño’s during the first year after a 2012–15-type event reduce statewide recovery times by approximately half. The southern part of California did not experience the high precipitation anticipated, and the multicentury analysis suggests the north-wet–south-dry pattern for such an El Niño was a low-likelihood anomaly. Recent wetness in California motivated evaluation of recovery times when the first two years are relatively wet, suggesting the state is benefiting from a one-infive (or lower) likelihood situation: the likelihood of full recovery within two years is ~1% in the instrumental data and even lower in the reconstruction data.
STUDY NOTES: The reconstructions are derived from streamflow reconstructions in western
United States, which are based on tree rings. See article for details.
Note: The data products set was updated on September 13, 2018, to include the
"wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-climate-div-means-text.zip" archive, described below.
Dataset Product Contents:
Section 1: Dataset product folder contents overview
Section 2: Details of the content the six ZIP archive files
Section 1: Dataset product folder contents overview
URL of folder:
https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/reconstructions/wahl2017
Item 1. readme-wahl-2017.txt - this file
Item 2. Six ZIP archive files which contain the actual data:
I. wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-nc3.zip
II. wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-medians-nc3.zip
III. wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-medians-annual-maps.zip
IV. wahl-2017-ca-climate-divs-all-uncert-nc3.zip
V. wahl-2017-ca-climate-divs-all-uncert-medians-nc3.zip
VI. wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-climate-div-means-text.zip
The first five ZIP archive files, listed above (I...IV), have the same
structure.
Each contains a folder, with the same filename as the ZIP
file from which it was extracted (excluding the ".zip" extension),
which contains:
A. One folder: data
which contains the actual data
B. One file: manifest-md5.txt
which contains the md5 checksum values of the file(s)
in the "data" directory
The sixth ZIP archive file,
"wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-climate-div-means-text.zip"
contains a folder named
"wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-climate-div-means-text"
which contains:
A. One folder: data
which contains the actual data. The data
being seven text-based data sets (one for each climate
division) which have the form of flat matrices, with 407 rows
(years) and 1001 columns (first column has the year values,
columns 2-1001 have the ensemble member precipitation values).
The files are named
"wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-text-div1-means.txt" ...
"wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-text-div7-means.txt"
B. One file: manifest-md5.txt
which contains the md5 checksum values of the file(s)
in the "data" directory.
Note: this ZIP archive was added to this dataset on September 13, 2018
Section 2: Details of the content of the ZIP archive files I. through VI.
I. wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-nc3.zip
This ZIP archive contains one folder:
wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-nc3, which contains:
A. One folder: data
which contains:
One file: wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-nc3.nc
which is a NetCDF file, which contains 1000 ensemble members,
each containing 407 years from 1571-1977 AD.
Each year contains:
a grid of 19 latitude X 21 longitude 0.5 x 0.5 degree grid cells
32.5 to 42.0 decimal degrees latitude North
-124.5 to -114.5 decimal degrees latitude East
EACH GRID CELL VALUE REPRESENTS THE PRECIPITATION AS MILLIMETERS.
Format: NetCDF version 3
NetCDF Header Information:
dimensions:
Ensemble = 1000 ;
Year = 407 ;
Latitude = 19 ;
Longitude = 21 ;
variables:
int Ensemble(Ensemble) ;
Ensemble:units = "count" ;
int Year(Year) ;
Year:units = "calendar_years" ;
double Latitude(Latitude) ;
Latitude:units = "degreesN" ;
double Longitude(Longitude) ;
Longitude:units = "degreesE" ;
double precipitation_amount(Longitude, Latitude, Year, Ensemble);
precipitation_amount:units = "Ensemble,Year,Latitude,
Longitude";
precipitation_amount:missing_value = -999. ;
B. One file: manifest-md5.txt
which contains the md5 checksum values and names of the
NetCDF file in the "data" folder, described above in A.
II. wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-medians-nc3.zip
This ZIP archive contains one folder:
wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-medians-nc3, which contains:
A. One folder: data
which contains:
One file: wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-medians-nc3.nc
which is a NetCDF file, which contains the medians
across the 1000 ensemble members, each containing 407 years
from 1571-1977 AD.
Each year contains:
407 years from 1571-1977 AD.
Each year contains:
a grid of 19 latitude X 21 longitude 0.5 x 0.5 degree grid cells
32.5 to 42.0 decimal degrees latitude North
-124.5 to -114.5 decimal degrees latitude East
EACH GRID CELL VALUE REPRESENTS THE PRECIPITATION AS MILLIMETERS.
Format: NetCDF version 3
NetCDF Header Information:
dimensions:
Year = 407 ;
Latitude = 19 ;
Longitude = 21 ;
variables:
int Year(Year) ;
Year:units = "calendar_years" ;
double Latitude(Latitude) ;
Latitude:units = "degreesN" ;
double Longitude(Longitude) ;
Longitude:units = "degreesE" ;
double precipitation_amount(Longitude, Latitude, Year);
precipitation_amount:units = "Year,Latitude,Longitude";
precipitation_amount:missing_value = -999. ;
B. One file: manifest-md5.txt
which contains the md5 checksum values and names of the
NetCDF file in the "data" folder, described above in A.
III. wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-medians-annual-maps.zip
ZIP archive wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-medians-annual-maps.zip contains
One folder:
wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-medians-annual-maps, which contains:
A. One folder: data
Description of the information in folder "data":
1221 Files, in three folders representing
407 Annual Maps for years 1571-1977 AD. anomalies. EACH MAP DEPICTS
THE MEDIAN PRECIPITATION FOR CALIFORNIA AS STANDARDIZED ANOMALIES
(calculated wrt the full reconstruction period).
As detailed below, each map is stored in PDF and PNG formats in the
"pdf" and "png" folders respectively. The data corresponding to
each map is stored in a tab separated file in the "tsv" folder.
Contents of folder "data":
One ZIP archive: wahl-2017-annual-maps-pdf-png-tsv.zip, which contains:
One folder: wahl-2017-annual-maps-pdf-png-tsv
which contains three folders:
1. folder: tsv - contains the data corresponding to each map,
in 407 tab separated value (TSV) format files
Each TSV file contains:
21 columns, each spanning 0.5 degrees of longitude.
The center longitude coordinate for the
column 1, east-most, cells through the
column 21, west-most, cells, are listed here:
-124.25,-123.75,-123.25,-122.75,-122.25,
-121.75,-121.25,-120.75,-120.25,-119.75,
-119.25,-118.75,-118.25,-117.75,-117.25,
-116.75,-116.25,-115.75,-115.25,-114.75,
-114.25
19 rows, each spanning 0.5 degrees of latitude.
The center latitude coordinate for the
row 1, south-most cells, through the
row 19 north-most cells, are listed here:
32.5,33.25,33.75,34.25,34.75,
35.25,35.75,36.25,36.75,37.25,
37.75,38.25,38.75,39.25,39.75,
40.25,40.75,41.25,41.75
2. folder: pdf - contains the 407 annual maps in PDF format
3. folder: png - contains the 407 annual maps in PNG format
B. One file: manifest-md5.txt
which contains the md5 checksum value for the
wahl-2017-annual-maps-pdf-png-tsv.zip ZIP archive
described above in A.
IV. wahl-2017-ca-climate-divs-all-uncert-nc3.zip
This ZIP archive contains one folder:
wahl-2017-ca-climate-divs-all-uncert-nc3, which contains:
A. One folder: data
which contains:
seven files: wahl-2017-ca-div1-all-uncert-nc3.nc ...
wahl-2017-ca-div7-all-uncert-nc3.nc
which are NetCDF files each representing one of the
seven California climate divisions,
401 ... 407 respectively.
Each NetCDF file contains 1000 ensemble members, each containing
407 years from 1571-1977 AD.
Each year contains:
a grid of 19 latitude X 21 longitude 0.5 x 0.5 degree grid cells
32.5 to 42.0 decimal degrees latitude North
-124.5 to -114.5 decimal degrees latitude East
EACH GRID CELL VALUE REPRESENTS THE PRECIPITATION AS MILLIMETERS.
Format: NetCDF version 3
NetCDF Header Information for each file:
dimensions:
Ensemble = 1000 ;
Year = 407 ;
Latitude = 19 ;
Longitude = 21 ;
variables:
int Ensemble(Ensemble) ;
Ensemble:units = "count" ;
int Year(Year) ;
Year:units = "calendar_years" ;
double Latitude(Latitude) ;
Latitude:units = "degreesN" ;
double Longitude(Longitude) ;
Longitude:units = "degreesE" ;
double precipitation_amount(Longitude, Latitude, Year, Ensemble);
precipitation_amount:units = "Ensemble,Year,Latitude,
Longitude";
precipitation_amount:missing_value = -999. ;
B. One file: manifest-md5.txt
which contains the md5 checksum values and names of the
sevem NetCDF files in the "data" folder, described above in A.
V. wahl-2017-ca-climate-divs-all-uncert-nc3-medians.zip
This ZIP archive contains one folder:
wahl-2017-ca-climate-divs-all-uncert-medians-nc3, which contains:
A. One folder: data
which contains:
seven files: wahl-2017-ca-div1-all-uncert-medians-nc3.nc ...
wahl-2017-ca-div7-all-uncert-medians-nc3.nc
which are NetCDF files, each representing one of the
seven California climate divisions,
401 ... 407 respectively. Each file contains the medians
across the 1000 ensemble members, each containing 407 years
from 1571-1977 AD.
Each year contains:
a grid of 19 latitude X 21 longitude 0.5 x 0.5 degree grid cells
32.5 to 42.0 decimal degrees latitude North
-124.5 to -114.5 decimal degrees latitude East
EACH GRID CELL VALUE REPRESENTS THE PRECIPITATION AS MILLIMETERS.
Format: NetCDF version 3
NetCDF Header Information for each file:
dimensions:
Year = 407 ;
Latitude = 19 ;
Longitude = 21 ;
variables:
int Year(Year) ;
Year:units = "calendar_years" ;
double Latitude(Latitude) ;
Latitude:units = "degreesN" ;
double Longitude(Longitude) ;
Longitude:units = "degreesE" ;
double precipitation_amount(Longitude, Latitude, Year);
precipitation_amount:units = "Year,Latitude,Longitude";
precipitation_amount:missing_value = -999. ;
B. One file: manifest-md5.txt
which contains the md5 checksum values and names of the
NetCDF files in the "data" folder, described above in A.
VI. wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-climate-div-means-text.zip
This ZIP archive contains one folder:
wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-climate-div-means-text, which contains:
A. One folder: data
which contains:
seven files: wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-text-div1-means.txt ...
wahl-2017-ca-all-uncert-text-div7-means.txt, which are seven
text-based data sets (providing the annual mean value for each
climate division for each of the 1000 ensemble members) which have
the form of flat matrices, with 407 rows (years) and 1001 columns
(first column has the year values, columns 2-1001 have the ensemble
member precipitation values).
B. One file: manifest-md5.txt
which contains the md5 checksum values and names of the
.txt files in the "data" folder, described above in A.
GET DATA
https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/reconstructions/wahl2017/
Data Folder; California precipitation reconstruction 0.5x0.5 grid from 1571 - 1977 AD
GET DATA
https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/reconstructions/wahl2017/readme-wahl-2017.txt
Data Description; California precipitation reconstruction 0.5x0.5 grid from 1571 - 1977 AD Readme File
USA/NOAA
DIF
Version 9.8.4
2018-12-11
2018-12-11