Abstract
Precipitation and temperature in Florida responds to climate teleconnections from both the Pacific and Atlantic regions. In this region south of Lake Okeechobee, encompassing NWS Climate Divisions 5, 6, and 7, modern movement of surface waters are managed by the South Florida Water Management District and the US Army Corps of Engineers for flood control, water supply, and Everglades restoration within the constraints of the climatic variability of precipitation and evaporation. Despite relatively narrow, low-relief, but multi-purposed land separating the Atlantic Ocean from the Gulf of Mexico, South Florida has patterns of precipitation and temperature that vary substantially on spatial scales of 101–102 km. Here we explore statistically significant linkages to precipitation and temperature that vary seasonally and over small spatial scales with El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Over the period from 1952 to 2005, ENSO teleconnections exhibited the strongest influence on seasonal precipitation. The Multivariate ENSO Index was positively correlated with winter (dry season) precipitation and explained up to 34 % of dry season precipitation variability along the southwest Florida coast. The AMO was the most influential of these teleconnections during the summer (wet season), with significant positive correlations to South Florida precipitation. These relationships with modern climate parameters have implications for paleoclimatological and paleoecological reconstructions, and future climate predictions from the Greater Everglades system.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Beckage B, Platt WJ, Slocum MG, Pank B (2003) Influence of the El Niño Southern Oscillation on fire regimes in the Florida everglades. Ecology 84:3124–3130
Bernhardt CE, Willard DA (2009) Response of the Everglades ridge and slough landscape to climate variability and 20th-century water management. Ecol Appl 19:1723–1738
Childers D (2006) A synthesis of long-term research by the Florida Coastal Everglades LTER program. Hydrobiologia 569:531–544
Cronin TM, Dwyer GS, Schwede SB, Vann CD, Dowsett H (2002) Climate variability from the Florida Bay sedimentary record: possible teleconnections to ENSO, PNA and CNP. Clim Res 19:233–245
Curtis S (2008) The Atlantic multidecadal oscillation and extreme daily precipitation over the US and Mexico during the hurricane season. Clim Dyn 30:343–351
Dai A, Trenberth KE, Qian T (2004) A global dataset of Palmer Drought Severity Index for 1870–2002: relationship with soil moisture and effects of surface warming. J Hydrometeorol 5:1117–1130
Diaz HF, Hoerling MP, Eischeid JK (2001) ENSO variability, teleconnections and climate change. Int J Climatol 21:1845–1862
Donders TH, Wagner F, Dilcher DL, Visscher H (2005) Mid-to late-Holocene El Nino-Southern Oscillation dynamics reflected in the subtropical terrestrial realm. Proc Natl Acad Sci 102:10904–10908
Ebisuzaki W (1997) A method to estimate the statistical significance of a correlation when data are serially correlated. J Clim 10:2147–2153
Enfield DB, Mestas-Nuñez AM, Trimble PJ (2001) The Atlantic multidecadal oscillation and its relation to rainfall and river flows in the continental US. Geophys Res Lett 28:2077–2080
Gaiser EE, Zafiris A, Ruiz PL, Tobias FAC, Ross MS (2006) Tracking rates of ecotone migration due to salt-water encroachment using fossil mollusks in coastal South Florida. Hydrobiologia 569:237–257
Goldenberg SB, Landsea CW, Mestas-Nunez AM, Gray WM (2001) The recent increase in Atlantic hurricane activity: causes and implications. Science 293:474–479
Henry JA, Portier KM, Coyne J (1994) The climate and weather of Florida. Pineapple Press, Inc., Sarasota, p 279
Lawrence MB, Pelissier JM (1981) Atlantic hurricane season of 1980. Mon Weather Rev 109:1567–1582
Mantua NJ, Hare SR (2002) The Pacific Decadal Oscillation. J Oceanogr 58:35–44
Mantua NJ, Hare SR, Zhang Y, Wallace JM, Francis RC (1997) A Pacific interdecadal climate oscillation with impacts on salmon production. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 78:1069–1079
Marshall CH, Pielke RA, Steyaert LT, Willard DA (2004) The impact of anthropogenic land-cover change on the Florida peninsula sea breezes and warm season sensible weather. Mon Weather Rev 132:28–52
Ogden L (2008) The Everglades ecosystem and the politics of nature. Am Anthropol 110:21–32
Pezzi LP, Cavalcanti IFA (2001) The relative importance of ENSO and tropical Atlantic sea surface temperature anomalies for seasonal precipitation over South America: a numerical study. Clim Dyn 17:205–212
Pielke RA (1974) A three-dimensional numerical model of the sea breezes over south Florida. Mon Weather Rev 102:115–139
Pielke RA, Walko RL, Steyaert LT, Vidale PL, Liston GE, Lyons WA, Chase TN (1999) The influence of anthropogenic landscape changes on weather in south Florida. Mon Weather Rev 127:1663–1673
Ropelewski CF, Halpert MS (1986) North-American precipitation and temperature patterns associated with the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Mon Weather Rev 114:2352–2362
Schlesinger ME, Ramankutty N (1994) An oscillation in the global climate system of period 65–70 years. Nature 367:723–726
Skinner C, Bloetscher F, Pathak CS (2009) Comparison of NEXRAD and rain gauge precipitation measurements in South Florida. J Hydrol Eng 14:248–260
Steinman AD, Havens KE, Carrick HJ, VanZee R (2002) The past, present, and future hydrology and ecology of Lake Okeechobee and its watersheds. In: Porter JW, Porter KG (eds) The Everglades, Florida Bay, and coral reefs of the Florida Keys: an ecosystem sourcebook. CRC Press, Boca Raton, pp 19–37
Swart PK, Dodge RE, Hudson HJ (1996) A 240-year stable oxygen and carbon isotopic record in a coral from south Florida: implications for the prediction of precipitation in southern Florida. Palaios 11:362–375
Ward PJ, Beets W, Bouwer LM, Aerts JCJH, Renssen H (2010) Sensitivity of river discharge to ENSO. Geophys Res Lett 37:L12402. doi:12410.11029/12010GL043215
Wolter K, Timlin MS (1998) Measuring the strength of ENSO events: how does 1997/98 rank? Weather 53:315–324
Acknowledgments
We thank the efforts of Dave Enfield for his constructive review and comments on this manuscript. This work was directly supported with grants from the NSF to the Florida Coastal Everglades LTER (DBI-0620409) and from the South Florida Water Management District (PO#4500033935). This is SERC contribution 568.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Moses, C.S., Anderson, W.T., Saunders, C. et al. Regional climate gradients in precipitation and temperature in response to climate teleconnections in the Greater Everglades ecosystem of South Florida. J Paleolimnol 49, 5–14 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-012-9635-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-012-9635-0