There have been debates on the driving factors of C4 plant expansion, such as PCO2 decline in the late Micocene and warmer climate and precipitation at large-scale modern ecosystems. These disputes are mainly due to the lack of direct evidence and extensive data analysis. Here we use mass flora data to explore the driving factors of C4 distribution and divergent patterns for different C4 taxa a...

[1] Aerosols are a critical factor in the atmospheric hydrological cycle and radiation budget. As a major agent for clouds to form and a significant attenuator of solar radiation, aerosols affect climate in several ways. Current research suggests that aerosol effects on clouds could further extend to precipitation, both through the formation of cloud particles and by exerting persistent radiati...

We investigated the large-scale connection between African aerosol and precipitation in the West African Monsoon (WAM) region using 8-year (2000–2007) monthly and daily Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aerosol products (aerosol optical depth, fine mode fraction) and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) precipitation and rain type. These high-quality data further confi...

This study uses a statistical downscaling method based on self-organizing maps (SOMs) to produce highresolution, downscaled precipitation estimates over the state of Pennsylvania in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The SOMs approach derives a transfer function between large-scale mean atmospheric states and local meteorological variables (daily point precipitation values) of intere...

The potential impact of Indian Ocean sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in modulating mid-latitude precipitation across southern and western regions of Australia is assessed in a series of atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) simulations. Two sets of AGCM integrations forced with a seasonally evolving characteristic dipole pattern in Indian Ocean SST consistent with observed “dry-y...

climate change is found to be the most important global issue in the 21st century, so to monitor its trend is of great importance. atmospheric general circulation models because of their large scale computational grid are not able to predict climatic parameters on a point scale, so small scale methods should be adapted. among downscaling methods, statistical methods are used as they are easy to...

In this paper, trends in streamflow and precipitation at the annual, seasonal and monthly timescales for different periods of records are analysed for the Aconcagua River Basin in central Chile. In this mountainous basin in the dry Andes water resources originate mainly from glaciers and seasonal snowcovers. The Mann-Kendall nonparametric test is used, and statistically significant trends are i...

Climatic controls on fluvial landscapes are commonly characterized in terms of mean annual precipitation. However, physical erosion processes are driven by extreme events and are therefore more directly related to the intensity, duration, and frequency of individual rainfall events. Climate also influences erosional processes indirectly by controlling vegetation. In this study, we explore how i...

Studying precipitation variability in the Peruvian Andes is a challenge given the high topographic variability and the scarcity of weather stations. Yet previous research has shown that a near-linear relationship exists between precipitation and vegetation in the semiarid central Andes. We exploit this relationship by developing a new, spatially highly resolved spatiotemporal precipitation reco...

Daily precipitation in the UK has changed over the period 1961-2000, becoming on average more intense in winter and less intense in summer. Recent increases in total winter precipitation are shown to be mainly due to an increase in the amount of precipitation on wet days, with a smaller contribution in the western UK from a trend towards more wet days. If the wet-day amounts are modelled using ...