Springtime Soil Moisture, Natural Climatic Variability, and North American Drought as Simulated by the NCAR Community Climate Model 1

Abstract

Previous results concerning the role that summertime soil moisture reductions can play in amplifying or maintaining North American droughts are extended to include the role of springtime soil moisture reductions and the role that natural climatic variability, as expressed in soil moisture can play. General circulation model (GCM) simulations with the NCAR Community Climate Model have been made with initial desert-like soil moisture anomalies imposed on 1 May and on 1 March. The May simulation maintained the imposed anomaly throughout the summer, while in the March simulation the anomaly was ameliorated within one month. Thus, the timing of soil moisture reductions may be crucial. A 10-year model control) integration with prescribed sea surface temperatures yielded 1 year with late spring and summer soil moisture values similar to those of the 1 May anomaly simulation. This suggests that occasional widespread North American droughts may be an inherent feature of at 1east the GCM employed for this study. The results also demonstrate the important role played by moisture transport from the Gulf of Mexico in modulating or ameliorating drought conditions for much of the south-central United States. a topic that requires considerable further investigation.