INTER-ANNUAL TO CENTURY SCALE CLIMATE VARIATIONS AND THE DYNAMICS OF THE GREAT SALT LAKE

It is generally recognized that a closed basin lake such as the Great Salt Lake acts as a space and time integrator of the hydrologic processes in its catchment. The characteristic time scales of the integral hydrologic processes correspond to low-pass filters (not necessarily linear) of the meteorological or climatic inputs/exchanges with the basin. In this paper, we take a fresh look at the frequency and time domain structure of the various inputs and the aggregate response of the Great Salt Lake, tying together and re-interpreting a number of past analyses related to the dynamics of the lake and its forcing by low frequency climate modes. Implications for the predictability of aggregated hydroclimatic fluxes and for modleing their low frequency dynamics -- as a black box and also in terms of key hydrologic processes that are active at the significant time scales are discussed.