A spatiotemporal teleconnection study between Peruvian precipitation and oceanic oscillations

Abstract

Large-scale oceanic oscillations and their teleconnections with meteorological events are of great importance in macro-scale climatic studies. In this regard, this study investigates the spatiotemporal teleconnections between four oceanic oscillations, namely North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation (AMO), and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), against Peruvian precipitation patterns during the past 25 years (i.e., 1990-2015). For this purpose, variation in the precipitation pattern at monthly and annual scales as well as the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) time series at 1-, 3-, 12-, and 48-month time scales were evaluated at 10 meteorology stations across Peru. Pearson's correlation coefficient and mutual information between the oceanic oscillations and precipitation-born signals were calculated and spatially interpolated using the Kriging method. The results indicated the presence of three major climatic regions in the country. The NAO has the largest correlation with the monthly precipitation. However, the ENSO was found as the main climate driver of extremely wet and extremely dry conditions in the country. The results also demonstrated that the PDO has a higher impact on the annual precipitation pattern, particularly in the southern and eastern parts of the country.