Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T03:22:09.426Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Asynchronous Droughts in California Streamflow as Reconstructed from Tree Rings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Christopher J. Earle
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Streamflow since 1560 A.D. for four rivers within the Sacramento River Basin, California, has been reconstructed dendroclimatically. Both the highest and the lowest reconstructed streamflows occurred during the historical period, with high flows from 1854 to 1916 and low flows from 1917 to 1950. Prolonged (decade-scale) excursions from the mean have been the norm throughout the reconstructed period. The periods of high and low streamflow in the Sacramento Basin are generally synchronous with wet and dry periods reconstructed by dendroclimatic studies in the western United States. The record indicates a number of asynchronous droughts or wet years. The strongest contrasts are developed between northern (western Washington and Oregon or the Columbia Basin) and southern (the Sacramento Basin or central California) climate regions. These asynchronous events may be due to variation in the latitude of the subtropical high and in the latitudinal position of winter storms coming off the Pacific. No association was found with El Niño-Southern Oscillation events.

Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , May 1993 , pp. 290 - 299
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bryson, R. A., and Hare, F. K. (1980). “World Series of Climatology: Climates of North America,” Vol. 11. Elsevier, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Cook, E. R., and Jacoby, G. C Jr. (1979). Evidence for quasi-periodic July drought in the Hudson Valley, New York. Nature 282, 390–392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, E. R., and Jacoby, G. C Jr. (1983). Potomac River streamflow since 1730 as reconstructed by tree rings. Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology 22, 1659–1672.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cropper, J. P., and Fritts, H. C. (1984). “A 360 Year Temperature and Precipitation Record for the Pasco Basin Derived from Tree-Ring Data.” Final Report to Pacific Northwest Laboratories, Battelle Me-morial Institute, Contract B-G5323-A-E.Google Scholar
Draper, N., and Smith, H. (1981). “Applied Regression Analysis,” 2nd ed. Wiley-Interscience, New York.Google Scholar
Earle, C. J., and Fritts, H. C. (1986). “Reconstructing Riverflow in the Sacramento Basin Since 1560.” Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson.Google Scholar
Ezekiel, M., and Fox, K. A. (1959). “Methods of Correlation and Regression Analysis.” Wiley, New York.Google Scholar
Fritts, H. C. (1976). “Tree Rings and Climate.” Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Fritts, H. C. (1982). An overview of dendroclimatic techniques, procedures, and prospects. In “Climate from Tree Rings” (Hughes, M. K. Kelly, P. M. Pilcher, J. R., and LaMarche, V. C. Jr., Eds.), pp. 191–197. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Fritts, H. C., and Gordon, G. A. (1980). “Annual Precipitation for California since 1600 Reconstructed from Western North American Tree Rings.” Technical Report to California Department of Water Re-sources, Sacramento, CA.Google Scholar
Fritts, H. C Smith, D. G. Cardis, J. W., and Budelsky, C. A. (1965). Tree-ring characteristics along a vegetation gradient in northern Arizona. Ecology 46, 393–401.Google Scholar
Graumlich, L. (1987). Precipitation variation in the Pacific Northwest (1675-1975) as reconstructed from tree rings. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77, 19–29.Google Scholar
Holmes, R. L. Adams, R. K., and Fritts, H. C. (1986). “Tree-Ring Chronologies of Western North America: California, Eastern Oregon and Northern Great Basin with Procedures Used in the Chronology Development Work Including Users Manuals for Computer Programs COFECHA and ARSTAN.” Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson.Google Scholar
Jones, P. D. Briffa, K. R., and Pilcher, J. R. (1984). Riverflow reconstruction from tree rings in southern Britain. Journal of Climatology 4, 461–472.Google Scholar
Kienast, F. Schweingruber, F. H. Braker, O. U., and Schar, E. (1987). Tree-ring studies on conifers along ecological gradients and the potential of single-year analyses. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 17, 683–696.Google Scholar
LaMarche, V. C Jr. (1974). Paleoclimatic inferences from long tree-ring records. Science 183, 1043–1048.Google Scholar
Lydolph, P. E. (1985). “The Climate of the Earth.” Rowman and Al-lanheld, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Meko, D. M., and Stockton, C. W. (1984). Secular variations in stream-flow in the western United States. Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology 23, 889–897.Google Scholar
Michaelsen, J. Haston, L., and Davis, F. W. (1987). 400 years of central California precipitation variability reconstructed from tree-rings. Water Resources Bulletin 23, 809–818.Google Scholar
Namias, J. (1983). Some causes of United States drought. Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology 22, 30–39.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quinn, W. H. Neal, V. T., and Atunez de Mayolo, S. E. (1987). El Nino occurrences over the past four and a half centuries. Journal of Geophysical Research 92, 14,449–14,461.Google Scholar
Schoner, T., and Nicholson, S. E. (1989). The relationship between California rainfall and ENSO events. Journal of Climate 2, 1258–1269.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, L. P., and Stockton, C. W. (1981). Reconstructed stream flow for the Salt and Verde Rivers from tree-ring data. Water Resources Bulletin 17, 939–947.Google Scholar
Stockton, C. W. (1975). “Long-Term Streamflow Records Recon-structed from Tree Rings.” Papers of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research No. 5. Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Stockton, C. W., and Fritts, H. C. (1971). Augmenting annual runoff records using tree-ring data. In “Hydrology and Water Resources in Arizona and the Southwest,” Vol. 1, pp. 1–12.Google Scholar
Stockton, C. W., and Jacoby, G. C Jr. (1976). “Long-Term Surface-Water Supply and Streamflow Trends in the Upper Colorado River Basin.” Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California.Google Scholar
Stokes, M. A., and Smiley, T. L. (1968). “An Introduction to Tree-Ring Dating.” Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar