Abstract

Application of the method of partial least squares (PLS) regression to geophysical data is illustrated with two cases: (1) finding sea level pressure patterns over the North Pacific associated with dynamically-induced winter-to-winter variations in snowpack in the Cascade mountains of western Washington state and (2) finding patterns of sea surface temperature over the tropical oceans that modulate Atlantic hurricane activity on a year-to-year basis. In both examples two robust patterns in the “predictor field” are identified that, in combination, account for over half the variance in the target time series.