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Precipitation regionalization, anomalies and drought occurrence in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

De la Barreda, Betsab�; Metcalfe, Sarah E.; Boyd, Doreen S.

Precipitation regionalization, anomalies and drought occurrence in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico Thumbnail


Authors

DOREEN BOYD doreen.boyd@nottingham.ac.uk
Professor of Earth Observation



Abstract

© 2020 The Authors. International Journal of Climatology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of the Royal Meteorological Society. Climate change projections have identified the Yucatan Peninsula as being vulnerable to increasing drought. Understanding spatial and temporal precipitation variability and drought occurrence are therefore important. Drought monitoring in Mexico has been carried out only relatively recently and often without considering the long-term variability in both droughts and precipitation. This research explores the spatio-temporal variability of precipitation and occurrence of droughts at a much finer spatial resolution and over a longer temporal period than previous studies. Using statistical (cluster analysis and standardized precipitation index) and geostatistical (kriging) techniques, maps of precipitation and droughts are generated for the period 1980–2011. These show that whilst many previous studies have regarded the Yucatan Peninsula as a homogenous region with respect to precipitation, there are actually four distinctive clusters of precipitation amount, showing climatic variability across the Peninsula. The analyses also show that droughts in the Peninsula are regionalised. Twelve-month Standardized Precipitation Indices (SPI), calculated for individual stations and for precipitation surfaces, reveal distinct patterns of spatial and temporal variability. SPI surfaces indicate the occurrence of major droughts in 1981, 1986–1987, 1994, 1996, 2003, 2004 and 2009, but these rarely affect the whole Yucatan Peninsula uniformly. Wetter years, such as 1983, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1995, 2002 and 2005 sometimes reflect the impact of individual extreme events, such as hurricane Isidore in 2002. Our results show that drought can be regionalised, thus enhancing the quality of information about droughts in the area and providing evidence and support for future drought mitigation and environmental protection. These methods could usefully be applied elsewhere.

Citation

De la Barreda, B., Metcalfe, S. E., & Boyd, D. S. (2020). Precipitation regionalization, anomalies and drought occurrence in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. International Journal of Climatology, 40(10), 4541-4555. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.6474

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jan 5, 2020
Online Publication Date Jan 9, 2020
Publication Date 2020-08
Deposit Date Mar 19, 2020
Publicly Available Date Mar 20, 2020
Journal International Journal of Climatology
Print ISSN 0899-8418
Electronic ISSN 1097-0088
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 40
Issue 10
Pages 4541-4555
DOI https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.6474
Keywords Atmospheric Science
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3794561
Publisher URL https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/joc.6474

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