The Effects of the Gulf of California SSTs on Warm-Season Rainfall in the Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico: A Regional Model Study

Abstract

The impacts of the sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the northern Gulf of California (GC) on warm-season rainfall in the Arizona?New Mexico (AZNM) and the northwestern Mexico (NWM) regions associated with the North American monsoon (NAM) are examined from two sets of seasonal simulations in which different SSTs were prescribed in the GC. The simulations reproduced important features in the low-level mesoscale circulations and upper air fields around the time of monsoon rainfall onset in AZNM such as sea-breeze-like diurnal variations in the low-level winds between the GC and the land, development of south-southeasterly winds over the GC and the western slope of the Sierra Madre Occidental after the onset of rainfall, and the strengthening of the 500-hPa high over AZNM around the onset of monsoon rainfall in AZNM. The simulated temporal variations in the upper air fields and daily rainfall, as well as the mesoscale circulation around the GC, suggest that the GC SSTs affect the water cycle around the GC mainly by altering mesoscale circulation and water vapor fluxes, but they have minimal impacts on the onset timing of monsoon rainfall in NWM and AZNM. With higher SSTs in the NGC, rainfall in NWM and AZNM increases in response to enhanced water vapor fluxes from the GC into the land. The enhanced onshore component of the low-level water vapor fluxes from the GC with higher GC SSTs results from two opposing effects: weakened sea-breeze-like circulation between the GC and the surrounding lands that tends to reduce the water vapor fluxes from the GC, and increased evaporation from the GC that tends to increase the water vapor fluxes. The simulations also suggest that the development of south-southeasterly low-level winds over the GC after monsoon rainfall onset plays an important role in enhancing rainfall as longer fetches over the GC can provide more water vapor into the low atmosphere.