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Winter Precipitation Forecast in the European and Mediterranean Regions Using Cluster Analysis
Author(s) -
Totz Sonja,
Tziperman Eli,
Coumou Dim,
Pfeiffer Karl,
Cohen Judah
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2017gl075674
Subject(s) - mediterranean climate , climatology , precipitation , environmental science , cluster (spacecraft) , climate change , canonical correlation , meteorology , geography , computer science , geology , mathematics , statistics , archaeology , programming language , oceanography
The European climate is changing under global warming, and especially the Mediterranean region has been identified as a hot spot for climate change with climate models projecting a reduction in winter rainfall and a very pronounced increase in summertime heat waves. These trends are already detectable over the historic period. Hence, it is beneficial to forecast seasonal droughts well in advance so that water managers and stakeholders can prepare to mitigate deleterious impacts. We developed a new cluster‐based empirical forecast method to predict precipitation anomalies in winter. This algorithm considers not only the strength but also the pattern of the precursors. We compare our algorithm with dynamic forecast models and a canonical correlation analysis‐based prediction method demonstrating that our prediction method performs better in terms of time and pattern correlation in the Mediterranean and European regions.