ARTICLE Received 13 Jan 2014 | Accepted 5 Aug 2014 | Published 11 Sep 2014 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5912 Persistence of pressure patterns over North America and the North Pacific since AD 1500 Erika K. Wise1 & Matthew P. Dannenberg1 Changes in moisture delivery to western North America are largely controlled by interrelated, synoptic-scale atmospheric pressure patterns. Long-term records of upper-atmosphere pressure and related circulation patterns are needed to assess potential drivers of past severe droughts and evaluate how future climate changes may impact hydroclimatic systems. Here we develop a tree-ring-based climate field reconstruction of cool-season 500 hPa geopotential height on a 2° Â 2° grid over North America and the North Pacific to AD 1500 and examine the frequency and persistence of preinstrumental atmospheric pressure patterns using Self-Organizing Maps. Our results show extended time periods dominated by a set of persistent upper-air pressure patterns, providing insight into the atmospheric conditions leading to periods of sustained drought and pluvial periods in the preinstrumental past. A striking shift from meridional to zonal flow occurred at the end of the Little Ice Age and was sustained for several decades. 1 Department of Geography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to E.K.W. (email: [email protected]). NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | 5:4912 | DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5912 | www.nature.com/naturecommunications 1 & 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. ARTICLE NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5912 he position of the mid-latitude storm track, which Pressure anomalies in the upper atmosphere can persist for represents the primary large-scale moisture-delivery path- years to decades and influence temperature, precipitation and Tway to North America, is closely connected to the strength storm tracks over North America9. Extending the record of these and position of upper-atmosphere pressure features such as the anomalies would allow for a better understanding of the drivers of Pacific subtropical high and the Aleutian low1. Changes in these past climate conditions. This has become particularly important synoptic pressure features have been linked to global-scale for future climate change forecasting and planning, as ongoing oscillations in coupled ocean–atmosphere systems (particularly changes in atmospheric circulation due to anthropogenic forcing the El Nin˜o–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) system)2,3 and to have already been identified9. Here, we use regularized Northern Hemisphere wave-train disturbances such as those expectation maximization with ridge regression (RegEM- described by the Pacific North American (PNA) pattern4. Shifts ridge)10,11 to develop a spatial reconstruction of cool-season, in the dominance of certain synoptic-scale atmospheric features 500 hPa geopotential height (GPH) anomalies since AD 1500. We have occurred over the instrumental period and influenced then investigate dominant synoptic climate patterns embedded drought and flood regimes in western North America, including within this reconstruction using Self-Organizing Maps (SOM). the early 20th century pluvial period and the devastating droughts Our findings, which show extended time periods dominated by a of the 1930s and 1950s (ref. 5). set of persistent upper-air pressure patterns over the 511-year Records from tree rings and other paleoclimate proxies have record, provide insight into the atmospheric conditions associated provided insight into the range of variability in the hydroclimatic with distinctive terrestrial hydroclimate conditions in the system beyond the relatively short instrumental record. One of preinstrumental past and suggest that the end of the Little Ice the most important findings in water-limited western North Age (LIA) was marked by an abrupt transition from strong America is that there have been periods of severe and sustained meridional to zonal flow. drought in the preinstrumental past exceeding known droughts from the instrumental record6. The cause of these droughts is Results thought to be sustained shifts in moisture delivery processes Reconstructed atmospheric pressure. RegEM-ridge10,11, which linked to changes in ocean–atmosphere systems, particularly utilizes covariance within and between the instrumental and ENSO6. While many droughts are synchronous with La Nin˜a proxy data to iteratively impute missing values in the full events, others are not and require additional explanation such as data matrix, has been applied in previous paleoclimate the inclusion of North Pacific influences3. reconstructions12,13 and has demonstrated skill with the Long-term pressure data derived from the tree-ring record can datasets used in this study14. Our reconstruction, developed be used to extend our understanding of these shifts in moisture- using tree-ring data from the International Tree-Ring Data Bank delivery processes by allowing an assessment of the frequency and (ITRDB; Fig. 1 and Methods) and NCEP/NCAR Twentieth persistence of certain circulation patterns and their variability Century Reanalysis V2 climate data (20CR2) provides cool- through time. Although there have been numerous reconstruc- season (October–March), 500 hPa GPH anomalies back to AD tions of teleconnection indices, relatively few studies have 1500 on a 2° Â 2° grid over western North America and the engaged in synoptic dendroclimatology as a way to link tree northeastern Pacific Ocean. The 500 hPa level has been widely growth with large-scale climate delivery systems through a focus used in the study of atmospheric circulation due the strength of on pressure patterns7. Pressure itself does not limit tree growth, teleconnection patterns at this height4. The October–March cool but seasonal pressure anomalies reflect large-scale, persistent season is a time of pronounced teleconnection influence4 and a perturbations in climate8 and are associated with the suite of vital period for moisture delivery to western North America1,2. variables that do control growth, including temperature, The seasonal climate signal reflected in tree growth varies moisture, wind and cloud cover7,9. Past research comparing depending on geographic location, elevation and species15. Cool- pressure data with tree-ring growth over the instrumental time season climate conditions have a strong influence on tree growth period found that variations in pressure accounted for more across a variety of climate zones due to effects on processes variance in growth than did single climate variables such as such as cambial activation, root mortality, xylem embolisms and temperature or precipitation, likely due to the multivariate soil moisture recharge15–17. The GPH reconstruction model climate controls on growth that are reflected in pressure demonstrates skill throughout the spatial domain as assessed by fields7. standard climate field reconstruction validation metrics (Fig. 2). 120°E 150°E 180°W 150°W 120°W 90°W 60°W 80°N 60°N 40°N 20°N Figure 1 | Spatial domain of GPH reconstruction and tree-ring site locations. Cool-season (October–March) 500 hPa GPH anomalies were reconstructed on a 2° Â 2° grid over 14°N–70°N latitude and 160°E–70°W longitude (inner box) using ITRDB tree-ring sites correlated with GPH at a 0.001 significance level (green triangles) within the spatial domain bounded by 10°N–80°N latitude and 100°E–60°W longitude (outer box). 2 NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | 5:4912 | DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5912 | www.nature.com/naturecommunications & 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5912 ARTICLE pattern characteristic of PNA þ (columns 4 and 5) shifts to the 180°W 150°W 120°W 90°W CE 0.6 west, while the reverse pattern (columns 1 and 2) shifts to the east 60°N (Fig. 3). Changes in the position of the trough and ridge 0.4 axes, which alter the spatial distribution of temperature and precipitation5, have important implications for terrestrial climate 40°N conditions. 0.2 The transition in anomaly patterns across columns suggests a shift in the westerly storm track from more northerly flow in 0 20°N column 1 to increasingly southerly flow in column 5 (Fig. 3). Columns 1 and 5 are strongly indicative of La Nin˜a and El Nin˜o conditions, respectively. On the basis of the instrumental record of ENSO, the La Nin˜a-type GPH anomaly patterns (column 1) 180°W 150°W 120°W 90°W R 0.8 would likely be associated with a westward retraction of the East 60°N Asian jet stream and a bifurcated or northerly shift of the storm track across North America, while the El Nin˜o-like patterns 0.6 (column 5) would be associated with an enhanced East Asian jet 40°N stream and a storm track shifted south. Columns 2–4 represent 0.4 transitions between these two extremes, including ENSO-neutral conditions. 20°N 0.2 Circulation changes through time. The placement of archetypal nodes that span the continuum of data allow SOM to capture 180°W 150°W 120°W 90°W RMSE 1.2 non-linear aspects of the data and to operate without needing to conform to a specific predefined data distribution18,19. This is 60°N particularly relevant when dealing with paleoclimate, when 1.0 dominant patterns may have differed from the instrumental 40°N period; however, there is still the potential for ‘no analog’ paleoclimate conditions that lie outside the instrumental data 20 0.8 domain . Each input value to the SOM (here, the yearly spatial 20°N grids of cool-season GPH anomalies) maps to the node with the lowest error, allowing analysis of frequency of occurrence through 19 Figure 2 | Spatial validation metrics for the RegEM-ridge reconstruction time . The overall frequency of pattern occurrence is highly model. (a) coefficient of efficiency (CE), where values of CE can range from variable and ranges from 3.5 to 11.5%; three of the 15 nodes have À N to 1 and any CE greater than zero (shaded areas) indicates predictive frequencies that are significantly higher or lower than the skill.