Influence of Atlantic sea surface temperatures on persistent drought in North America

Feng, Song; Hu, Qi; Oglesby, Robert J.

doi:10.1007/s00382-010-0835-x

Cited by 104 publications

(81 citation statements)

References 57 publications

(103 reference statements)

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“…It is noted that the dryland expansion in the last sixty years (i.e., 1991-2005 versus 1948-1962) from models is only 0.35 × 10 6 km 2 , which is much smaller than 2.4 × 10 6 km 2 from observations. This difference could be due to large natural SST variations in last 60 yr which were not captured by the models (Schubert et al, 2009;Feng et al, 2011;Dai, 2013) as well as the underestimation of the Hadley cell expansion. The models also do not simulate the enhanced wintertime warming over the mid-and high-latitude Northern Hemisphere continents during the later 20th century (e.g., Huang et al, 2012), which is largely caused by natural variability (Wallace et al, 2012).…”

Section: Changes In Global Ariditymentioning

confidence: 98%

“…3) than observations would at least partly be caused by the underestimation of modeled tropical expansion. Precipitation over land is also strongly influenced by natural variability of sea surface temperature patterns (Schubert et al, 2009;Feng et al, 2011), which could largely contribute to the differences between models and observations (Dai, 2013).…”

Section: Dryland Expansionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Expansion of global drylands under a warming climate

2013

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Abstract. Global drylands encompassing hyper-arid, arid, semiarid, and dry subhumid areas cover about 41 percent of the earth's terrestrial surface and are home to more than a third of the world's population. By analyzing observations for 1948-2008 and climate model simulations for 1948-2100, we show that global drylands have expanded in the last sixty years and will continue to expand in the 21st century. By the end of this century, the world's drylands (under a high greenhouse gas emission scenario) are projected to be 5.8 × 10 6 km 2 (or 10 %) larger than in the 1961-1990 climatology. The major expansion of arid regions will occur over southwest North America, the northern fringe of Africa, southern Africa, and Australia, while major expansions of semiarid regions will occur over the north side of the Mediterranean, southern Africa, and North and South America. The global dryland expansions will increase the population affected by water scarcity and land degradations.

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Section: Changes In Global Ariditymentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Dryland Expansionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expansion of global drylands under a warming climate

2013

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“…For example, in Asia, the spatiotemporal drought variability has been studied by Fang et al [4] and by Hua et al [5]. Regional drought events have been analyzed in South [6] and North America [7]. Stagge et al [8] and Lloyd-Hughes and Saunders [9] analyzed some of the major large-scale droughts in Central and Eastern Europe.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drought Analysis in Europe and in the Mediterranean Basin Using the Standardized Precipitation Index

Caloiero

Veltri²,

Caloiero³

et al. 2018

Water

106

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Abstract:In this study, drought events over a large area of the Northern Hemisphere, including continental Europe, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the Mediterranean basin, were analyzed using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) at various times scales (3, 6, 12, and 24 months). To this purpose, the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) Full Data Monthly Product Version 2018 data set, with spatial resolutions of 0.5 • longitude/latitude and for the period 1951-2016, has been used. First, the temporal evolution of the percentage of grid points, falling within the severe and extreme drought categories, has been evaluated. Then, a trend analysis has been performed at a seasonal scale, considering the autumn-winter and the spring-summer periods, and at an annual scale. The results of this paper highlight that the Mediterranean basin and North Africa are the most consistently vulnerable areas showing a general reduction in SPI values especially for the long time scale.

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“…Interestingly, the MCA and other "Old World" droughts seem to coincide with the timing of some severe and persistent droughts documented in the climate history of North America. While this suggests the presence of some common driving mechanisms across the North Atlantic, possibly related to variations in the Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperature (SST) and/or the North Atlantic Oscillation (Feng et al, 2011;Oglesby et al, 2012), the cause of these megadroughts remains an open question.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hydroclimate variability in Scandinavia over the last millennium – insights from a climate model–proxy data comparison

et al. 2017

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Abstract. The integration of climate proxy information with general circulation model (GCM) results offers considerable potential for deriving greater understanding of the mechanisms underlying climate variability, as well as unique opportunities for out-of-sample evaluations of model performance. In this study, we combine insights from a new tree-ring hydroclimate reconstruction from Scandinavia with projections from a suite of forced transient simulations of the last millennium and historical intervals from the CMIP5 and PMIP3 archives. Model simulations and proxy reconstruction data are found to broadly agree on the modes of atmospheric variability that produce droughts-pluvials in the region. Despite these dynamical similarities, large differences between simulated and reconstructed hydroclimate time series remain. We find that the GCM-simulated multi-decadal and/or longer hydroclimate variability is systematically smaller than the proxy-based estimates, whereas the dominance of GCMsimulated high-frequency components of variability is not reflected in the proxy record. Furthermore, the paleoclimate evidence indicates in-phase coherencies between regional hydroclimate and temperature on decadal timescales, i.e., sustained wet periods have often been concurrent with warm periods and vice versa. The CMIP5-PMIP3 archive suggests, however, out-of-phase coherencies between the two variables in the last millennium. The lack of adequate understanding of mechanisms linking temperature and moisture supply on longer timescales has serious implications for attribution and prediction of regional hydroclimate changes. Our findings stress the need for further paleoclimate data-model intercomparison efforts to expand our understanding of the dynamics of hydroclimate variability and change, to enhance our ability to evaluate climate models, and to provide a more comprehensive view of future drought and pluvial risks.

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Influence of Atlantic sea surface temperatures on persistent drought in North America

Cited by 104 publications

References 57 publications

Expansion of global drylands under a warming climate

Expansion of global drylands under a warming climate

Drought Analysis in Europe and in the Mediterranean Basin Using the Standardized Precipitation Index

Hydroclimate variability in Scandinavia over the last millennium – insights from a climate model–proxy data comparison

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