A Climate Predictability Tool was used to evaluate the relationship between sea-surface
temperatures and stream flow at different lead-times in the upper Olifants catchment in
Mpumalanga, South Africa. Four stream flow stations were selected from each of the subcatchments
of the upper Olifants, namely the Groot Olifants on the eastern side and the
Wilger on the western side of the catchment.
Canonical correlation analyses were used to make three month stream flow forecasts for
October-November-December (OND) and January-February-March (JFM) seasons.
Monthly global-scale SSTs were used to evaluate the effect of lead-times on correlations
between global Sea-Surface Temperatures (SSTs) and stream flow. Then the lead-times
with Pearsonâs correlation values greater than 0.50 were selected to be used for evaluating
possible origins of stream flow forecasting skill in the Equatorial Atlantic, Southern
Atlantic, Equatorial Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Although local climatic and hydrological characteristics were not considered in this study
good hit score skill from the Southern Atlantic Ocean was found at a short lead-time of
two months for both OND and JFM seasons. The equatorial Atlantic Ocean gave a good
hit skill score at longer lead-times of seven and eight months. The equatorial Indian Ocean
gave a higher Heidke score at a short lead-time of two months during OND and JFM
seasons in the Groot Olifants sub-catchment. The oceanic domains adjacent to the southern
African subcontinent gave a good Heidke score at a shorter lead-time as compared to the
equatorial Pacific Ocean. These forecasts could be used for planning water storage and
releases in dams that are down stream of these stream flow monitoring points.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-09052008-064821 |
| Date | 05 September 2008 |
| Creators | Phahlane, Mmotong Obed |
| Contributors | Dr AL du Pisanie, Prof S Walker |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-09052008-064821/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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