A long-term perspective on a modern drought in the American Southeast

Pederson, Neil; Bell, Andrew Reid; Knight, Troy A.; Leland, Caroline; Malcomb, Nathan; Anchukaitis, Kevin J.; Tackett, Kacie Lee; Scheff, Jacob; Brice, Alejandro E.; Catron, B; Blozan, W; Riddle, J.

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/7/1/014034

Cited by 90 publications

(81 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Independent corroboration of this long-term trend toward more pluvial conditions is difficult because few, if any, reconstructions of drought from this region are available that use completely independent proxy data from the NADA. However, this trend is apparent in more recent regional reconstructions that incorporate additional proxies independent of the NADA (Pederson et al 2012(Pederson et al , 2013, and the trend is consistent with independent studies of forest dynamics over the last several hundred years (McEwan et al 2011). Three of the regions (SW, CP, and SE) show longterm, multicentennial trends in drought frequency or occurrence (Fig.…”

Section: A Single-region Drought Comparisonssupporting

confidence: 85%

“…Within the conterminous United States, hydroclimatic variability is a recurrent, robust feature of the regional climate in four primary regions: the Southwest (Hoerling et al 2009;Woodhouse et al 2010), the Northwest (Nelson et al 2011;Steinman et al 2012), the central plains (Hoerling et al 2009;Schubert et al 2004a,b), and the Southeast (Pederson et al 2012;). For the subsequent analyses of pancontinental drought, we spatially average the NADA over these four regions to derive regional time series of PDSI (1000-2005 CE).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The central plains region, while still influenced to some degree by the Pacific (Schubert et al 2004a,b), is on the northern edge of the Pacific SST teleconnection, and droughts in this area are driven primarily by spring and summer precipitation reductions often linked to warm Atlantic SSTs (e.g., Kushnir et al 2010;Nigam et al 2011). Much like the central plains, droughts in the southeastern United States also respond to Atlantic and Pacific SST variations (Mo and Schemm 2008;Pederson et al 2012;). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pan-Continental Droughts in North America over the Last Millennium*

et al. 2014

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Regional droughts are common in North America, but pan-continental droughts extending across multiple regions, including the 2012 event, are rare relative to single-region events. Here, the tree-ring-derived North American Drought Atlas is used to investigate drought variability in four regions over the last millennium, focusing on pan-continental droughts. During the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), the central plains (CP), Southwest (SW), and Southeast (SE) regions experienced drier conditions and increased occurrence of droughts and the Northwest (NW) experienced several extended pluvials. Enhanced MCA aridity in the SW and CP manifested as multidecadal megadroughts. Notably, megadroughts in these regions differed in their timing and persistence, suggesting that they represent regional events influenced by local dynamics rather than a unified, continental-scale phenomena. There is no trend in pan-continental drought occurrence, defined as synchronous droughts in three or more regions. SW, CP, and SE (SW1CP1SE) droughts are the most common, occurring in 12% of all years and peaking in prevalence during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; patterns involving three other regions occur in about 8% of years. Positive values of the Southern Oscillation index (La Niña conditions) are linked to SW, CP, and SE (SW1CP1SE) droughts and SW, CP, and NW (SW1CP1NW) droughts, whereas CP, NW, and SE (CP1NW1SE) droughts are associated with positive values of the Pacific decadal oscillation and Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. While relatively rare, pancontinental droughts are present in the paleo record and are linked to defined modes of climate variability, implying the potential for seasonal predictability. Assuming stable drought teleconnections, these events will remain an important feature of future North American hydroclimate, possibly increasing in their severity in step with other expected hydroclimate responses to increased greenhouse gas forcing. IntroductionDuring the summer of 2012, over half of the continental United States experienced moderate-to-severe drought conditions, with the core of the drought area extending across Mexico and the desert Southwest, the central plains, and the southeastern United States (Fig. 1). At its peak in July, the drought covered 61.8% of the contiguous United States (NCDC 2013a), exceeding the 99th percentile of drought-covered area observed during the full period of observation (from 1895 to the present). Notably, the area of the United States classified by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) as ''moderately to extremely dry'' exceeded the July 2012 area in only eight other months during the instrumental record (see http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/sotc/drought/ 2012/13/uspctarea-wetdry-mod.txt): April-October 1934 and December 1939, all during the Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s.Drought is a common and recurrent feature of North American climate (e.g., Cook et al. 2007; McCabe et al. 2004;Nigam et al. 2011; Schubert et al. 2004a,b;Seager et al. 2005), but pan-...

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Section: A Single-region Drought Comparisonssupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pan-Continental Droughts in North America over the Last Millennium*

et al. 2014

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“…In the United States, sustainable water use is not only a concern in the arid southwest (Sabo et al 2010) but even in humid areas such as the southeast (Pederson et al 2012). Freshwater is vital for human life, but biologically complex and intact freshwater ecosystems provide key ecosystem services that also benefit society (Baron et al 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Tale of Two Rivers: Implications of Water Management Practices for Mussel Biodiversity Outcomes During Droughts

Allen

Galbraith

Vaughn

et al. 2013

AMBIO

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Droughts often pose situations where stream water levels are lowest while human demand for water is highest. Here we present results of an observational study documenting changes in freshwater mussel communities in two southern US rivers during a multi-year drought. During a 13-year period water releases into the Kiamichi River from an impoundment were halted during droughts, while minimum releases from an impoundment were maintained in the Little River. The Kiamichi observed nearly twice as many low-flow events known to cause mussel mortality than the Little, and regression tree analyses suggest that this difference was influenced by reduced releases. During this period mussel communities in the Kiamichi declined in species richness and abundance, changes that were not observed in the Little. These results suggest that reduced releases during droughts likely led to mussel declines in one river, while maintaining reservoir releases may have sustained mussel populations in another.

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“…Since 1989 the ACF basin has been at the center of a multi-million dollar -water war‖ and ongoing litigation over surface-water allocation [51,52]. While the area typically receives ample rainfall that is distributed throughout the year (approximately 125 cm annually), the region is also subject to drought [53,54]. The ACF basin contains a high number of artificial water bodies with at least 25,000 reservoirs recognized in a recent study [55].…”

Section: Study Watershed Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small Reservoir Distribution, Rate of Construction, and Uses in the Upper and Middle Chattahoochee Basins of the Georgia Piedmont, USA, 1950–2010

Ignatius

Jones

2014

IJGI

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Construction of small reservoirs affects ecosystem processes in numerous ways including fragmenting stream habitat, altering hydrology, and modifying water chemistry. While the upper and middle Chattahoochee River basins within the Southeastern United States Piedmont contain few natural lakes, they have a high density of small reservoirs (more than 7500 small reservoirs in the nearly 12,000 km 2 basin). Policymakers and water managers in the region have little information about small reservoir distribution, uses, or the cumulative inundation of land cover caused by small reservoir construction. Examination of aerial photography reveals the spatiotemporal patterns and extent of small reservoir construction from 1950 to 2010. Over that 60 year timeframe, the area inundated by water increased nearly six fold (from 19 reservoirs covering 0.16% of the study area in 1950 to 329 reservoirs covering 0.95% of the study area in 2010). While agricultural practices were associated with reservoir creation from 1950 to 1970, the highest rates of reservoir construction occurred during subsequent suburban development between 1980 and 1990. Land cover adjacent to individual reservoirs transitioned over time through agricultural abandonment, land reforestation, and conversion to development during suburban expansion. The prolific rate of ongoing small reservoir creation, particularly in newly urbanizing regions and developing counties, necessitates additional attention from watershed managers and continued scientific research into cumulative environmental impacts at the watershed scale.

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A long-term perspective on a modern drought in the American Southeast

Cited by 90 publications

References 40 publications

Pan-Continental Droughts in North America over the Last Millennium*

Pan-Continental Droughts in North America over the Last Millennium*

A Tale of Two Rivers: Implications of Water Management Practices for Mussel Biodiversity Outcomes During Droughts

Small Reservoir Distribution, Rate of Construction, and Uses in the Upper and Middle Chattahoochee Basins of the Georgia Piedmont, USA, 1950–2010

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