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Article
Climate Diagnostics of the Extreme Floods in Peru During Early 2017
Climate Dynamics
  • Rackhun Son, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology
  • Shih-Yu Simon Wang, Utah State University
  • Wan-Ling Tseng, Academia Sinica
  • Christian W. Barreto Schuler, Servicio Nacional de Meteorología e Hidrología
  • Emily Becker, University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences
  • Jin-Ho Yoon, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology
Document Type
Article
Publisher
Springer
Publication Date
12-24-2019
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Abstract

From January through March 2017, a series of extreme precipitation events occurred in coastal Peru, causing severe floods with hundreds of human casualties and billions of dollars in economic losses. The extreme precipitation was a result of unusually strong recurrent patterns of atmospheric and oceanic conditions, including extremely warm coastal sea surface temperatures (SST) and weakened trade winds. These climatic features and their causal relationship with the Peruvian precipitation were examined. Diagnostic analysis and model experiments suggest that an atmospheric forcing in early 2017, which was moderately linked to the Trans-Niño Index (TNI), initiated the local SST warming along coastal Peru that later expanded to the equator. In January 2017, soil moisture was increased by an unusual expansion of Amazonian rainfall. By March, localized and robust SST warming provided positive feedback to the weakening of the trade winds, leading to increased onshore wind and a subsequent enhancement in rainfall. The analysis points to a tendency towards more frequent and stronger variations in the water vapor flux convergence along the equator, which is associated with the increased precipitation in coastal Peru.

Citation Information
Son, R., Wang, SY.S., Tseng, WL. et al. Clim Dyn (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-019-05038-y