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Influence of tropical Pacific SST on seasonal precipitation in Colombia: prediction using El Niño and El Niño Modoki

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Abstract

In this paper the forecast skill provided by the tropical Pacific Sea Surface Temperature (SST) associated with El Niño and El Niño Modoki over seasonal precipitation in Colombia has been evaluated through a lagged singular value decomposition analysis. The seasonal rainfall in many parts of the country can be predicted with suitable skill using the SST with a lead of one to four seasons. The response of precipitation to different phases of El Niño or El Niño Modoki is consistent with the state of the atmospheric fields of vertical velocity and velocity potential. Winter presents the best results for the prediction model, explaining the greatest percentage of square covariance fraction between the SST and lagged precipitation anomalies. The predictive capacity of these variability modes of SST for rainfall in Colombia is comparable or even higher in some seasons, particularly in winter, than the SST ability to explain the behavior of the precipitation during coetaneous seasons. The forecast of seasonal precipitation in Colombia validated in this work could be useful for planning and managing natural water resources in some regions of the country, particularly for the driest season of the year.

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Acknowledgments

The Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, with additional support from the European Community Funds (FEDER), project CGL2010-21188/CLI, and the Regional Government of Andalusia, project P11-RNM-7941, financed this study. S Córdoba-Machado and R. Palomino-Lemus are supported by the Technological University of Chocó (UTCH) and COLCIENCIAS-Colombia under a scholarship. Precipitation data sets were kindly provided by the Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales de Colombia (IDEAM). We thank two anonymous referees whose comments greatly improved the paper.

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  1. Departamento de Física Aplicada, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Granada, Campus Fuentenueva s/n, 18071, Granada, Spain

    Samir Córdoba-Machado, Reiner Palomino-Lemus, Sonia Raquel Gámiz-Fortis, Yolanda Castro-Díez & María Jesús Esteban-Parra

  2. Universidad Tecnológica del Chocó, Quibdó, Colombia

    Samir Córdoba-Machado & Reiner Palomino-Lemus

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  1. Samir Córdoba-Machado
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Correspondence to María Jesús Esteban-Parra.

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Córdoba-Machado, S., Palomino-Lemus, R., Gámiz-Fortis, S.R. et al. Influence of tropical Pacific SST on seasonal precipitation in Colombia: prediction using El Niño and El Niño Modoki. Clim Dyn 44, 1293–1310 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2232-3

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