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Twenty-first century hydroclimate: A continually changing baseline, with more frequent extremes

Variability in hydroclimate impacts natural and human systems worldwide. In particular, both decadal variability and extreme precipitation events have substantial effects and are anticipated to be strongly influenced by climate change. From a practical perspective, these impacts will be felt relativ...

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Autores principales: Stevenson, Samantha, Coats, Sloan, Touma, Danielle, Cole, Julia, Lehner, Flavio, Fasullo, John, Otto-Bliesner, Bette
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8944869/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35286205
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2108124119
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author Stevenson, Samantha
Coats, Sloan
Touma, Danielle
Cole, Julia
Lehner, Flavio
Fasullo, John
Otto-Bliesner, Bette
author_facet Stevenson, Samantha
Coats, Sloan
Touma, Danielle
Cole, Julia
Lehner, Flavio
Fasullo, John
Otto-Bliesner, Bette
author_sort Stevenson, Samantha
collection PubMed
description Variability in hydroclimate impacts natural and human systems worldwide. In particular, both decadal variability and extreme precipitation events have substantial effects and are anticipated to be strongly influenced by climate change. From a practical perspective, these impacts will be felt relative to the continuously evolving background climate. Removing the underlying forced trend is therefore necessary to assess the relative impacts, but to date, the small size of most climate model ensembles has made it difficult to do this. Here we use an archive of large ensembles run under a high-emissions scenario to determine how decadal “megadrought” and “megapluvial” events—and shorter-term precipitation extremes—will vary relative to that changing baseline. When the trend is retained, mean state changes dominate: In fact, soil moisture changes are so large in some regions that conditions that would be considered a megadrought or pluvial event today are projected to become average. Time-of-emergence calculations suggest that in some regions including Europe and western North America, this shift may have already taken place and could be imminent elsewhere: Emergence of drought/pluvial conditions occurs over 61% of the global land surface (excluding Antarctica) by 2080. Relative to the changing baseline, megadrought/megapluvial risk either will not change or is slightly reduced. However, the increased frequency and intensity of both extreme wet and dry precipitation events will likely present adaptation challenges beyond anything currently experienced. In many regions, resilience against future hazards will require adapting to an ever-changing “normal,” characterized by unprecedented aridification/wetting punctuated by more severe extremes.
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spelling pubmed-89448692022-03-25 Twenty-first century hydroclimate: A continually changing baseline, with more frequent extremes Stevenson, Samantha Coats, Sloan Touma, Danielle Cole, Julia Lehner, Flavio Fasullo, John Otto-Bliesner, Bette Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Physical Sciences Variability in hydroclimate impacts natural and human systems worldwide. In particular, both decadal variability and extreme precipitation events have substantial effects and are anticipated to be strongly influenced by climate change. From a practical perspective, these impacts will be felt relative to the continuously evolving background climate. Removing the underlying forced trend is therefore necessary to assess the relative impacts, but to date, the small size of most climate model ensembles has made it difficult to do this. Here we use an archive of large ensembles run under a high-emissions scenario to determine how decadal “megadrought” and “megapluvial” events—and shorter-term precipitation extremes—will vary relative to that changing baseline. When the trend is retained, mean state changes dominate: In fact, soil moisture changes are so large in some regions that conditions that would be considered a megadrought or pluvial event today are projected to become average. Time-of-emergence calculations suggest that in some regions including Europe and western North America, this shift may have already taken place and could be imminent elsewhere: Emergence of drought/pluvial conditions occurs over 61% of the global land surface (excluding Antarctica) by 2080. Relative to the changing baseline, megadrought/megapluvial risk either will not change or is slightly reduced. However, the increased frequency and intensity of both extreme wet and dry precipitation events will likely present adaptation challenges beyond anything currently experienced. In many regions, resilience against future hazards will require adapting to an ever-changing “normal,” characterized by unprecedented aridification/wetting punctuated by more severe extremes. National Academy of Sciences 2022-03-14 2022-03-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8944869/ /pubmed/35286205 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2108124119 Text en Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Physical Sciences
Stevenson, Samantha
Coats, Sloan
Touma, Danielle
Cole, Julia
Lehner, Flavio
Fasullo, John
Otto-Bliesner, Bette
Twenty-first century hydroclimate: A continually changing baseline, with more frequent extremes
title Twenty-first century hydroclimate: A continually changing baseline, with more frequent extremes
title_full Twenty-first century hydroclimate: A continually changing baseline, with more frequent extremes
title_fullStr Twenty-first century hydroclimate: A continually changing baseline, with more frequent extremes
title_full_unstemmed Twenty-first century hydroclimate: A continually changing baseline, with more frequent extremes
title_short Twenty-first century hydroclimate: A continually changing baseline, with more frequent extremes
title_sort twenty-first century hydroclimate: a continually changing baseline, with more frequent extremes
topic Physical Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8944869/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35286205
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2108124119
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