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California droughts caused mainly by changes in wind, not moisture
https://news.utexas.edu/2016/07/05/california-droughts-caused-mainly-by-changes-in-wind[font face=Serif][font size=5]California Droughts Caused Mainly by Changes in Wind, Not Moisture[/font]
July 5, 2016
[font size=3]AUSTIN, Texas — Droughts in California are mainly controlled by wind, not by the amount of evaporated moisture in the air, new research has found.
…
“Ocean evaporation provides moisture for California precipitation but is not the reason for droughts there, although the ocean evaporation is slightly lower during droughts,” Wei said.
The researchers analyzed 30-year data sets that recorded precipitation, ocean evaporation, surface wind speed and atmospheric pressure on and near the west coast of the United States. These are all factors that influence the water cycle in California. One of the difficulties of studying the water cycle, Wei said, is that the water sources for precipitation cannot be directly observed, so the team also used a mathematical moisture-tracking method and high-resolution model simulations.
Their analysis showed that although moisture evaporated from the Pacific Ocean is the major source for California precipitation, the amount of water evaporated did not strongly influence precipitation in California, except in the cases of very heavy flooding. That’s because the amount of water evaporated from this ocean region does not change much year by year, researchers found, and did not cause rain to occur more or less often.
…[/font][/font]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2016GL069386July 5, 2016
[font size=3]AUSTIN, Texas — Droughts in California are mainly controlled by wind, not by the amount of evaporated moisture in the air, new research has found.
…
“Ocean evaporation provides moisture for California precipitation but is not the reason for droughts there, although the ocean evaporation is slightly lower during droughts,” Wei said.
The researchers analyzed 30-year data sets that recorded precipitation, ocean evaporation, surface wind speed and atmospheric pressure on and near the west coast of the United States. These are all factors that influence the water cycle in California. One of the difficulties of studying the water cycle, Wei said, is that the water sources for precipitation cannot be directly observed, so the team also used a mathematical moisture-tracking method and high-resolution model simulations.
Their analysis showed that although moisture evaporated from the Pacific Ocean is the major source for California precipitation, the amount of water evaporated did not strongly influence precipitation in California, except in the cases of very heavy flooding. That’s because the amount of water evaporated from this ocean region does not change much year by year, researchers found, and did not cause rain to occur more or less often.
…[/font][/font]