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Precipitation variability imposes significant pressure in areas where agricultural practice is dominated by smallholder farmers who are dependent on subsistence farming. Advances in the understanding of this variability, in both time and space, have an important role to play in increasing the resilience of agricultural systems. The need is particularly pressing in regions of the world such as the African continent, which is already affected by multiple stresses including poverty and economic and political instability. In this paper, we explore the use of generalised linear models (GLMs) for this purpose, via a case study from north-east South Africa. A GLM is used to link the local rainfall variability to large-scale climate drivers identified from previous subcontinental-scale analyses, and the ability of the resulting model to simulate precipitation features that are relevant in agricultural applications is evaluated. We focus in particular on a set of growing season indices, proposed for the investigation of intraseasonal characteristics relevant for maize production in the region. Seven indices were computed from spatially averaged daily rainfall series from nine stations in the study area. As a first attempt to use GLMs for this type of application, the results are encouraging and suggest that the models are able to reproduce a range of agriculture-relevant indices. However, further research into spatial correlation structure is recommended to improve the multisite generation of the rainfall-derived characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A revised 25-point Shuman-Shapiro Spatial Filter (RSSSF) has been applied to six atmospheric circulation models and multi-model ensemble (MME) predictions, and its effect on the improvement of model forecast skill scores of the Asian summer precipitation anomaly is discussed in this paper. On the basis of 21-yr model ensemble predictions, the RSSSF can remove the unpredictable ‘noise’ with respect to the 2-grid wavelength in the model precipitation anomaly fields and maintain the large-scale counterpart, which is related to the response of the model to large-scale boundary forcing. Therefore, this could possibly enhance the forecast skill of the Asian summer rainfall anomaly in the models and the MME. The potential improvement of model forecasting skill is found in the Asian summer monsoon region, where the anomaly correlation coefficient (ACC) has been improved by 7–40%, corresponding to the decreased root mean square error (RMSE) in the model and the MME precipitation anomaly forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a widely held view that the Pampa region (PR) dry and wet periods are predominantly a consecuence of the El Niño-Southern oscillation (ENSO) phenomenom. The current paper focuses on non-ENSO rainfall anomalies for the period 1948–2000, the more recent of which have had catastrophic consequences throughout the region. We analyze horizontal water vapor transport, pressure and circulation anomalies occurring in Southern South America (SSA) during this type of event. Positive and negative (wet and dry) extreme events during the rainy and dry seasons in the region were registered. Based on NCEP reanalysis data it was established that under rainfall deficit, anomalies of similar intensity occurred simultaneously in the PR and in central Chile, whereas under excess rainfall the anomalies were mostly confined to the PR. The existence of a cyclone-anticyclone pair in the anomalous circulation pattern over mid latitudes of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and straddling the southern portion of the continent maintains an intense and extense meridional circulation over the continental plains, which leads to the abnormal values in moisture transport and rainfall rate. The atmospheric water balance equation calculated for the PR indicates that anomalous water vapor is carried in from the continental equatorial region and from the subtropical Atlantic, its magnitude varying in accordance with the season and the sign of the anomaly. Furthermore, evidence of the important role of transient terms corroborates their contribution to the anomalous total moisture flux divergence under rainfall deficit during the dry season. The mean sea-level pressure anomaly fields of the extreme cases were further examined by principal component analysis to discern those circulation features directly linked to rainfall deviations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]