Sensitivity of the Orographic Precipitation Across the Australian Snowy Mountains to Regional Climate Indices
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CSIRO PUBLISHING Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science, 2019, 69, 196–204 https://doi.org/10.1071/ES19014 Sensitivity of the orographic precipitation across the Australian Snowy Mountains to regional climate indices Fahimeh SarmadiA,B,E, Yi HuangC,D, Steven T. SiemsA,B and Michael J. MantonA ASchool of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, 9 Rainforest Walk, Monash University, Melbourne, Vic. 3800, Australia. BAustralian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, Monash University, Melbourne, Vic., Australia. CSchool of Earth Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Vic., Australia. DAustralian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, Melbourne, Vic., Australia. ECorresponding author. Email: [email protected] Abstract. The wintertime (May–October) precipitation across south-eastern Australia, and the Snowy Mountains, was studied for 22 years (1995–2016) to explore the sensitivity of the relationships between six established climate indices and the precipitation to the orography, both regionally and locally in high-elevation areas. The high-elevation (above 1100 m) precipitation records were provided by an independent network of rain gauges maintained by Snowy Hydro Ltd. These observations were compared with the Australian Water Availability Project (AWAP) precipitation analysis, a commonly used gridded nationwide product. As the AWAP analysis does not incorporate any high-elevation sites, it is unable to capture local orographic precipitation processes. The analysis demonstrates that the alpine precipitation over the Snowy Mountains responds differently to the indices than the AWAP precipitation. In particular, the alpine precipitation is found to be most sensitive to the position of the subtropical ridge and less sensitive to a number of other climate indices tested. This sensitivity is less evident in the AWAP representation of the high-elevation precipitation. Regionally, the analysis demonstrates that the precipitation to the east of the Snowy Mountains (the downwind precipitation) is weakly correlated with the upwind and peak precipitation. This is consistent with previous works that found that the precipitation in this downwind region commonly occurs from mechanisms other than storm systems passing over the mountains. Received 1 April 2019, accepted 1 July 2019, published online 11 June 2020 1 Introduction a 13-year (1997–2009) period both had rainfall deficits of above The Australian Alps are the highest part of the continental divide 10%, relative to the 1900–2009 long-term average. Much of along the eastern seaboard, known as the Great Dividing Range, south-west and south-east Australia underwent below-average and plays a crucial role in the weather across the densely pop- to record-low rainfall during the peak of the Millennium ulated south-eastern seaboard. The Great Dividing Range forms Drought, which is defined by van Dijk et al. (2013) as the period the headwaters of many of the major rivers in the Murray– 2001–09: the longest consecutive series of years with below- Darling Basin and underpins many unique natural ecosystems of median rainfall in south-east Australia since at least 1900. The the high-mountain catchments with some of the richest biodi- Millennium Drought had a significant impact on the Australian versity areas on the mainland. The Alpine water accounts for economy and led to large declines in agricultural employment 29% of the annual average inflow yield of the Murray–Darling and rural exports (Lu and Hedlry 2004). According to the Basin (Worboys and Good 2011). The Snowy Mountains, which Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) data (http://www.bom.gov.au/ reside along the Great Dividing Range, are the tallest mountains climate/drought/), in 2006, south-east Australia experienced its among the few Alpine regions in Australia (Fig. 1, top panel). second-driest year on record since 1900, with below-normal Precipitation over the Snowy Mountains has been of great annual precipitation. Nicholls (2005) reported a decreasing interest among researchers, given its central role in feeding some trend in both maximum, from ,210 to ,190 cm, and spring of the major river systems of the Murray–Darling Basin, as well snow depth, from ,175 to ,100 cm, in the Snowy Mountains as providing hydroelectric power for much of eastern Australia. over a 40-year period beginning in 1962. A decline of ,10% Two prolonged periods of dry conditions have been experi- was observed in the maximum snow depth over this period. A enced in south-eastern Australia (south of 33.58S and east of much larger decrease in spring snow depth (,40%) was also 135.58E) in the past 100 years. An 11-year (1935–45) period and observed, mostly attributed to the melting of the snow due to a Journal compilation Ó BoM 2019 Open Access CC BY-NC-ND www.publish.csiro.au/journals/es Sensitivity of the orographic precipitation Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science 197 Elevation (m) 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 2100 44°S 43°S 42°S 41°S 40°S 39°S 38°S 37°S 36°S 35°S 34°S 33°S 32°S 2200 135°E 137°E 139°E 141°E 143°E 145°E 147°E 149°E 151°E 153°E Elevation (m) 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 37°S 36°S 35°S 2000 2100 2200 147°E 148°E149°E 150°E Fig. 1. (Top plot) Topographic map of south-eastern Australia showing major rivers (green dots), main cities and the closest upper wind site of the BOM to the Snowy Mountains (Wagga Wagga), with the area defined as SEA- domain (red box). (Bottom plot) Zoomed-in view of the three other precipitation domains used in this study (West- domain in solid line, Peak-domain in dashed line and East-domain in dashed-dotted line). Other features include the location of the seven SHL and BOM rain gauges in green plus signs and black dots respectively. combination of a slight decline in winter precipitation and a (SAM), Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and the Atmospheric strong warming trend during July–September. Blocking Index (ABI) at the longitude of 1408E. They found Risbey et al. (2009) suggested that precipitation across the ABI to be the dominant climate driver for winter precipita- Australia, and, in particular, south-east Australia, is generally tion across south-east Australia. Timbal and Drosdowsky (2013) governed by large-scale climate drivers such as the El Nin˜o– linked the spatial and temporal rainfall decline in south-east Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Index, Southern Annular Mode Australia to the position (STR-P) and intensity (STR-I) of the 198 Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science F. Sarmadi et al. subtropical ridge during 1997–2009. Grose et al. (2015) found The complexity of wintertime orographic precipitation over the same relationship in the historical Coupled Model Intercom- the Snowy Mountains suggests that it may not be well represented parison Project Phase 5 simulations. Several studies have by a precipitation analysis that does not directly incorporate high- documented the sensitivity of precipitation in south-east elevation surface observations, such as AWAP (Chubb et al. Australia to the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI, as an indicator 2016). Accordingly, the correlation between the average regional of ENSO), indicating higher mean monthly precipitation during precipitation and a given climate index may not apply to the high- La Nin˜a events (e.g. Gallant et al. 2012; Murphy and Timbal elevation orographic precipitation. Similarly, a single correlation 2008; Ummenhofer et al. 2011; Cai et al. 2011; Pepler et al. over a broad region may not reveal variations arising from the 2014; Theobald and McGowan 2016). orography. Given the importance of the precipitation across For many of these studies, the precipitation over south-east south-east Australia, and the Snowy Mountains in particular, Australia has commonly been defined from a precipitation the aim of this study is to explore the sensitivity of the relation- analysis product, such as the Australian Water Availability ships between climate indices and the precipitation to the orogra- Project (AWAP; Jones et al. 2009), for a specified domain. phy, both regionally and locally at high-elevation areas. Unlike The correlation of the average precipitation over the domain the previous climate studies mentioned, independent high- with the specific climate index establishes the strength of any elevation rain gauge observations are employed in this analysis. relationship. As there is no single fixed definition of south-east Australia, these studies have commonly defined a broad domain 2 Precipitation data sources that can average over orographic and nonorographic regions, The analysis is limited to the 22-year (1995–2016) period, even though the Snowy Mountains have been found to greatly wintertime only (May–October) being constrained by the affect the precipitation, both regionally (e.g. Timbal 2010; availability of high quality, high elevation, surface observations Pepler et al. 2014) and locally over the peaks (Chubb et al. from Snowy Hydro Ltd. (SHL). 2011; Huang et al. 2018). On a regional scale, mountains can block an advancing air mass and its precipitation, diverting it 2.1 Snowy Hydro Ltd. ground-based wintertime rather than having it pass over the top. Locally, orographic (May–October) precipitation data set precipitation can occur from a variety of dynamic and micro- physical processes that are not present at upwind and downwind Local, high-elevation precipitation across the Snowy Mountains sites. For instance, Houze (2012) identified 12 distinct oro- is obtained from seven well-maintained weather stations above graphic processes that can create, enhance and/or redistribute 1100 m, operated by SHL. Half-hourly precipitation amounts precipitation. are accumulated from 0900 hours local time (2300 UTC) to the Detailed case studies of wintertime precipitation events over same time of the next day, and then these daily precipitation the Great Dividing Range have found that postfrontal oro- values are aggregated to yield monthly totals.