The relationship of soil moisture parameterizations to subsequent seasonal and monthly mean temperature in the United States.

Abstract

The water content parameter and the moisture anomaly index, both derived from the Palmer Drought Severity model, were correlated against subsequent mean monthly and seasonal (three-month means) temperatures for 344 climatic divisions on the US (1931-83). During spring and summer, Monte Carlo field significance tests demonstrate that the correlation fields produced from the soil moisture parameters are significantly larger than those derived using persistence of monthly and seasonal temperature anomalies. The areas of the US with enhanced soil moisture parameterization-temperature correlations tend to be confined to the interior. With respect to the Palmer water budget evapotranspiration calculations sensitivity studies of the soil moisture parameterizations were performed using a fixed annual cycle of evapotranspiration - no year-to-year variations of the annual cycle. Statistically significant, but not drastic, degradations of the correlations of parameterized soil moisture with subsequent seasonal and monthly mean temperature were noted.-from Author