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Modes of Variability of Annual and Seasonal Rainfall in Mexico
Author(s) -
AlvarezOlguin Gabriela,
EscalanteSandoval Carlos
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
jawra journal of the american water resources association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.957
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1752-1688
pISSN - 1093-474X
DOI - 10.1111/1752-1688.12488
Subject(s) - climatology , environmental science , homogeneity (statistics) , homogeneous , pacific decadal oscillation , principal component analysis , series (stratigraphy) , north atlantic oscillation , seasonality , southern oscillation , el niño southern oscillation , geography , geology , mathematics , statistics , paleontology , combinatorics
The aim of this study is to identify temporal and spatial variability patterns of annual and seasonal rainfall in Mexico. A set of 769 weather stations located in Mexico was examined. The country was divided into 12 homogeneous rainfall regions via principal component analysis. A Pettitt test was conducted to perform a homogeneity analysis for detecting abrupt changes in mean rainfall levels, and a Mann‐Kendall test was conducted to examine the presence of monotonically increasing/decreasing patterns in the data. In total, 14.4% of the annual series was deemed nonstationary. Fourteen percent of the samples were nonstationary in the winter and summer, and 9% were nonstationary in the spring and autumn. According to the results, the nonstationarity of some seasonal rainfall series may be associated with the presence of atmospheric phenomena ( e.g ., El Niño/Southern Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, and North Atlantic Oscillation). A rainfall frequency analysis was performed for the nonstationary annual series, and significant differences in the return levelsx ^ T can be expected for the scenarios analyzed. The identification of areas that are more susceptible to changes in rainfall levels will improve water resource management plans in the country, and it is expected that these plans will take into account nonstationary theory.