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Is there memory in precipitation?

Nature Climate Change volume 3, pages 174–175 (2013)Cite this article

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Variability in the total amounts of precipitation is known to affect ecological systems, agricultural yields and human societies among various spatial and temporal scales1. Characterizing and understanding the persistence of wet and dry conditions in the distant past gives new perspectives on contemporary climate change and its causes. Such insights should also help in devising hydro-climatological adaptation and mitigation strategies for the future. The time span of systematic meteorological measurements at the global scale is, however, mainly restricted to the 20th century2, and only a few stations have continuous records dating further back in time. Pre-instrumental information on precipitation variability therefore mainly derives from proxy-based reconstructions and output from climate model simulations, with both lines of independent evidence ideally covering the past millennium. Here we address whether these sources reflect a consistent picture of historical variability in precipitation — in fact, they do not.

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Figure 1: Persistence of precipitation.

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Acknowledgements

We thank E. Zorita for helpful discussions and support. Supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeintschaft (PRIME 2 and Historical Climatology in the Near East for J.L; BU-534/24-1 for A.B.), the European Union /FP7 (ACWQA for J.L.), the Eva Mayr-Stihl Foundation, and the Czech project 'Building up a multidisciplinary scientific team focused on drought' (No. CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0248).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Giessen, Giessen, 35392, Germany

    Armin Bunde & Josef Ludescher

  2. Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, 8903, Switzerland

    Ulf Büntgen

  3. Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, 3012, Switzerland

    Ulf Büntgen

  4. Global Change Research Centre AS CR, v.v.i., Brno, 60300, Czech Republic

    Ulf Büntgen

  5. Department of Geography, University of Giessen, Giessen, 35390, Germany

    Jürg Luterbacher

  6. Helmholtz Zentrum Geesthacht, Institute for Coastal Research, Geesthacht, 21502, Germany

    Hans von Storch

Authors
  1. Armin Bunde
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  2. Ulf Büntgen
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  3. Josef Ludescher
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  4. Jürg Luterbacher
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  5. Hans von Storch
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Correspondence to Armin Bunde.

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Bunde, A., Büntgen, U., Ludescher, J. et al. Is there memory in precipitation?. Nature Clim Change 3, 174–175 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1830

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