Why Do Different Drought Indices Show Distinct Future Drought Risk Outcomes in the U.S. Great Plains?

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F86652079%3A_____%2F17%3A00470302" target="_blank" >RIV/86652079:_____/17:00470302 - isvavai.cz</a>

Alternative codes found

RIV/62156489:43210/17:43911221

Result on the web

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0590.1" target="_blank" >http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0590.1</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0590.1" target="_blank" >10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0590.1</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Why Do Different Drought Indices Show Distinct Future Drought Risk Outcomes in the U.S. Great Plains?

Original language description

Vigorous discussions and disagreements about the future changes in drought intensity in the U.S. Great Plains have been taking place recently within the literature. These discussions have involved widely varying estimates based on drought indices and model-based projections of the future. To investigate and understand the causes for such a disparity between these previous estimates, the authors analyzed the soil moisture at the near-surface soil layer and the entire soil column, as well as the Palmer drought severity index, the Palmer Z index, and the standardized precipitation and evaporation index using the output from the Community Climate System Model, version 4 (CCSM4), and 25 state-of-the-art climate models. These drought indices were computed using potential evapotranspiration estimated by the physically based Penman–Monteith method (PE_pm) and the empirically based Thornthwaite method (PE_th). The results showed that the short-term drought indices are similar to modeled surface soil moisture and show a small but consistent drying trend in the future. The long-term drought indices and the total column soil moisture, however, are consistent in projecting more intense future drought. When normalized, the drought indices with PE_th all show unprecedented future drying, while the drought indices with PE_pm show comparable dryness with the modeled soil moisture. Additionally, the drought indices with PE_pm are closely related to soil moisture during both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Overall, the drought indices with PE_pm, as well as the modeled total column soil moisture, suggest a widespread and very significant drying in the Great Plains toward the end of the century. The results suggest that the sharp contrasts about future drought risk in the Great Plains discussed in previous studies are caused by 1) comparing the projected changes in short-term droughts with that of the long-term droughts and/or 2) computing the atmospheric evaporative demand using an empirically based method (e.g., PE_th). The analysis here may be applied for drought projections in other regions across the globe.

Czech name

—

Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10509 - Meteorology and atmospheric sciences

Project

Result was created during the realization of more than one project. More information in the Projects tab.

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2017

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Journal of Climate

ISSN

0894-8755

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

30

Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

US - UNITED STATES

Number of pages

14

Pages from-to

265-278

UT code for WoS article

000391855700016

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85008191299