Future Projections of Global Pluvial and Drought Event Characteristics

Martin, Elinor R.

doi:10.1029/2018gl079807

Cited by 59 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…With climate change, the inter-annual variability as well as the length of dry and wet periods may increase in central Sahel in the next decades (Monerie et al 2017, Martin 2018. In this region, there is no consensus on the sign of annual precipitation change between global circulation models (Christensen et al 2014).…”

Section: System Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The red noise model used to assess the effect of rainfall variability poorly represents the strong decadal structure of Sahelian rainfall (Dieppois et al 2013), and the effect of the temporal structure of rainfall may be stronger than estimated. Furthermore, a larger intraseasonal variability is also anticipated in a warmer climate (Martin 2018), which could also affect the potential for resilience.…”

Section: System Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The outflow of Sahelian watersheds has continued to increase in recent years , which is associated with an intensification of rainfall (Taylor et al 2017 and floods (Wilcox et al 2018, Tamagnone et al 2019, and these trends are expected to persist with climate change (Giannini et al 2013, Monerie et al 2017, Martin 2018. Land conversion to croplands is also expected to continue over the coming decades as a result of one of the highest population growths worldwide (UN 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Drought-induced regime shift and resilience of a Sahelian ecohydrosystem

Wendling

Peugeot

Mayor

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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The Sahel (a semi-arid fringe south of the Sahara) experienced a long and prolonged drought from the 1970s to the mid-1990s, with a few extremely severe episodes that strongly affected ecosystems and societies. Long-term observations showed that surface runoff increased during this period, despite the rainfall deficit. This paradox stems from the soil degradation that was induced by various factors, either directly linked to the drought (impact on vegetation cover), or, in places, to human practices (land clearing and cropping). Surface runoff is still increasing throughout the region, suggesting that Sahelian ecohydrosystems may have shifted to a new hydrological regime. In order to explore this issue, we have developed a simple system dynamics model incorporating vegetation-hydrology interactions and representing in a lumped way the first order processes occurring at the hillslope scale and the annual timestep. Long term observations on a pilot site in northern Mali were used to constrain the model and define an ensemble of plausible simulations. The model successfully reproduced the vegetation collapse and the runoff increase observed over the last 60 years. Our results confirmed that the system presents two alternative states and that during the drought it shifted from a high-vegetation/low-runoff regime to the alternative low-vegetation/high-runoff one, where it has remained trapped until now. We showed that the mean annual rainfall deficit was sufficient to explain the shift. According to the model, vegetation recovery and runoff reduction are possible in this system, but the conditions in which they could occur remain uncertain as the model was only constrained by observations over the collapse trajectory. The study shows that the system is also sensitive to the interannual and decadal variability of rainfall, and that larger variability leads to higher runoff. Both mean rainfall and rainfall variability may increase in central Sahel under climate change, leading to antagonist effects on the system, which makes its resilience uncertain.

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Section: System Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: System Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Drought-induced regime shift and resilience of a Sahelian ecohydrosystem

Wendling

Peugeot

Mayor

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…Along with warming, observational data further evidenced interannual and seasonal variability in precipitation patterns (Fischer & Knutti, ; Groisman et al, ; Wang et al, ). Most detectable changes are the increase of the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation and drought events (Dai, ; Fischer & Knutti, ; Martin, ). Global and regional climate models showed that more heavy precipitation episodes often lead to longer period of continuous dry days (Allan & Soden, ) at the expense of light and moderate precipitation (Dai, ; Ljungqvist et al, ; Sherwood & Fu, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of climate warming on Sphagnum photosynthesis in peatlands depend on peat moisture and species‐specific anatomical traits

Jassey

Signarbieux

2019

Global Change Biology

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Climate change will influence plant photosynthesis by altering patterns of temperature and precipitation, including their variability and seasonality. Both effects may be important for peatlands as the carbon (C) sink potential of these ecosystems depends on the balance between plant C uptake through photosynthesis and microbial decomposition. Here, we show that the effect of climate warming on Sphagnum community photosynthesis toggles from positive to negative as the peatland goes from rainy to dry periods during summer. More particularly, we show that mechanisms of compensation among the dominant Sphagnum species (Sphagnum fallax and Sphagnum medium) stabilize the average photosynthesis and productivity of the Sphagnum community during summer despite rising temperatures and frequent droughts. While warming had a negligible effect on S. medium photosynthetic capacity (Amax) during rainy periods, Amax of S. fallax increased by 40%. On the opposite, warming exacerbated the negative effects of droughts on S. fallax with an even sharper decrease of its Amax while S. medium Amax remained unchanged. S. medium showed a remarkable resistance to droughts due to anatomical traits favouring its water holding capacity. Our results show that different phenotypic plasticity among dominant Sphagnum species allow the community to cope with rising temperatures and repeated droughts, maintaining similar photosynthesis and productivity over summer in warmed and control conditions. These results are important because they provide information on how soil water content may modulate the effects of climate warming on Sphagnum productivity in boreal peatlands. It further confirms the transitory nature of warming‐induced photosynthesis benefits in boreal systems and highlights the vulnerability of the ecosystem to excess warming and drying.

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“…As the atmosphere continues to warm in the future, this effect is likely to intensify and lead to more precipitation in the region (Kuang & Jiao, ; Peng et al, ; Peng & Zhou, ). Previous studies, which have used CMIP5 climate models for projecting future precipitation changes in China, also projected increased precipitation over Tibetan Plateau and Northwest China in the future due to the effect of global warming (Chen & Frauenfeld, ; Chong‐Hai & Ying, ; Martin, ; Wang & Chen, ; Yin et al, ). Furthermore, the relative dominance of PDO is also high in some parts of these regions (Figure b).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multidecadal Changes in Meteorological Drought Severity and Their Drivers in Mainland China

Apurv

Wang

et al. 2019

JGR Atmospheres

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This study analyzes the multidecadal changes in the severity of extreme meteorological droughts at the regional scale in China during 1951–2017. Dominance analysis is applied to multiple linear regression models to quantify the relative influence of global warming and internal variability on the meteorological drought severity in nine climate regions of China to understand which drivers are the most significant for each region and how they are likely to influence the severity of droughts in the near future (10–20 years). The influence of internal variability is represented by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). The PDO and global warming are found to have a stronger influence on the multidecadal variability of drought severity in China than the AMO. Global warming is found to be the more dominant driver of multidecadal variability of drought severity in the western parts of China, whereas the PDO is found to have a more dominant influence in the eastern parts of China. In the near future, global warming and the PDO are both likely to contribute to reduction of drought severity in Xinjiang, Northwest, and Tibet regions. The positive phase of the PDO is also expected to reduce the severity of droughts in Inner Mongolia and South China. On the other hand, both the PDO and global warming are expected to contribute to increase in drought severity in North and Southwest China in the near future.

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Future Projections of Global Pluvial and Drought Event Characteristics

Cited by 59 publications

References 33 publications

Drought-induced regime shift and resilience of a Sahelian ecohydrosystem

Drought-induced regime shift and resilience of a Sahelian ecohydrosystem

Effects of climate warming on Sphagnum photosynthesis in peatlands depend on peat moisture and species‐specific anatomical traits

Multidecadal Changes in Meteorological Drought Severity and Their Drivers in Mainland China

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