News Finding: This prompts a commensurate anomaly east of the Philippine Islands, which, in turn, results in a strengthening or weakening of the jet stream in the Northern Hemisphere, having a direct influence on the amount of rain that falls on California between November and March.
Paper Finding: SSTs in the NZI region and SWUS precipitation exhibited statistically significant (α = 0.05 significance level) correlations (Fig.
News Context: "Knowing how much rain to expect in the coming winter is crucial for the economy, water security and ecosystem management of the region." This prompts a commensurate anomaly east of the Philippine Islands, which, in turn, results in a strengthening or weakening of the jet stream in the Northern Hemisphere, having a direct influence on the amount of rain that falls on California between November and March. "With the New Zealand Index, we can predict from late summer the likelihood of above- or below-normal winter precipitation in the southwestern U.S., with a correlation in the order of 0.7 - compared to the El Nino-Southern Oscillation technique, which has a correlation around 0.3 to 0.4," said lead author Antonios Mamalakis, a UCI graduate student in civil and environmental engineering.
Paper Context: Important insight about the physical mechanism underpinning the NZI teleconnection is gained by exploring the dynamic evolution of the relationship between winter precipitation in the SWUS and ocean and atmosphere state variables in the Pacific basin during the preceding year. SSTs in the NZI region and SWUS precipitation exhibited statistically significant (α = 0.05 significance level) correlations (Fig. 4 ) during boreal spring (correlations of −0.5), which strengthened during boreal summer, and reached maximum values in fall (correlations of −0.7).