Natural hazards in Australia: droughts

Kiem, Anthony S.; Johnson, Fiona; Westra, Seth; Dijk, Albert I. J. M. van; Evans, Jason P.; O’Donnell, Alison; Rouillard, Alexandra; Barr, Cameron; Tyler, Jonathan; Thyer, Mark; Jakob, Dörte; Woldemeskel, Fitsum; Sivakumar, Bellie; Mehrotra, R.

doi:10.1007/s10584-016-1798-7

Cited by 207 publications

(163 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…Because of these serious consequences, severe droughts in the recent past have gained wide attention. These droughts include the Millennium drought in Southeast Australia (Van Dijk et al, 2013;Kiem et al, 2016), the once-in-a-century droughts in Southwest China (Qiu, 2010;Zuo et al, 2015), the Horn of Africa drought (Masih et al, 2014;Lyon, 2014) and the most recent California drought (Aghakouchak et al, 2015;Cheng et al, 2016). In the context of climate change, drought risks involving duration and intensity are likely to increase in many historical drought-prone regions with global warming (Dai, 2012;Fu and Feng, 2014;Kelley et al, 2015;Ault et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global drought and severe drought-affected populations in 1.5 and 2 °C warmer worlds

et al. 2018

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Abstract. The 2015 Paris Agreement proposed a more ambitious climate change mitigation target on limiting global warming to 1.5 • C instead of 2 • C above preindustrial levels. Scientific investigations on environmental risks associated with these warming targets are necessary to inform climate policymaking. Based on the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) climate models, we present the first risk-based assessment of changes in global drought and the impact of severe drought on populations from additional 1.5 and 2 • C warming conditions. Our results highlight the risk of drought on a global scale and in several hotspot regions such as the Amazon, northeastern Brazil, southern Africa and Central Europe at both 1.5 and 2 • C global warming relative to the historical period, showing increases in drought durations from 2.9 to 3.2 months. Correspondingly, more total and urban populations would be exposed to severe droughts globally (+132.5 ± 216.2 million and +194.5 ± 276.5 million total population and +350.2 ± 158.8 million and +410.7 ± 213.5 million urban populations in 1.5 and 2 • C warmer worlds) and regionally (e.g., East Africa, West Africa and South Asia). Less rural populations (−217.7 ± 79.2 million and −216.2 ± 82.4 million rural populations in 1.5 and 2 • C warmer worlds) would be exposed to severe drought globally under climate warming, population growth and especially the urbanization-induced population migration. By keeping global warming at 1.5 • C above the preindustrial levels instead of 2 • C, there is a decrease in drought risks (i.e., less drought duration, less drought intensity and severity but relatively more frequent drought) and the affected total, urban and rural populations would decrease globally and in most regions. While challenging for both East Africa and South Asia, the benefits of limiting warming to below 1.5 • C in terms of global drought risk and impact reduction are significant.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global drought and severe drought-affected populations in 1.5 and 2 °C warmer worlds

et al. 2018

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“…The lack of large, densely vegetated areas, which mask out the L-band emissions sensitive to soil moisture, is beneficial. Furthermore, soil moisture information based on satellite data is often advertised as being especially useful for monitoring hydrological extremes such as floods and droughts, both of which Australia is susceptible to Johnson et al, 2016;Kiem et al, 2016). In addition to the ones already mentioned, a number of studies have focused on Australia, covering soil moisture retrieval (Van der Schalie et al, 2015), assimilation studies (Lievens et al, 2015b), validation studies and field campaigns for SMOS (Peischl et al, 2009;Panciera et al, 2008), as well as SMAP (Panciera et al, 2014) and soil moisture downscaling experiments (Piles et al, 2011;Merlin et al, 2012;Dumedah et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

SMOS brightness temperature assimilation into the Community Land Model

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Lievens

et al. 2017

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission) brightness temperatures at a single incident angle are assimilated into the Community Land Model (CLM) across Australia to improve soil moisture simulations. Therefore, the data assimilation system DasPy is coupled to the local ensemble transform Kalman filter (LETKF) as well as to the Community Microwave Emission Model (CMEM). Brightness temperature climatologies are precomputed to enable the assimilation of brightness temperature anomalies, making use of 6 years of SMOS data (2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015). Mean correlation R with in situ measurements increases moderately from 0.61 to 0.68 (11 %) for upper soil layers if the root zone is included in the updates. A reduced improvement of 5 % is achieved if the assimilation is restricted to the upper soil layers. Root-zone simulations improve by 7 % when updating both the top layers and root zone, and by 4 % when only updating the top layers. Mean increments and increment standard deviations are compared for the experiments. The longterm assimilation impact is analysed by looking at a set of quantiles computed for soil moisture at each grid cell. Within hydrological monitoring systems, extreme dry or wet conditions are often defined via their relative occurrence, adding great importance to assimilation-induced quantile changes. Although still being limited now, longer L-band radiometer time series will become available and make model output improved by assimilating such data that are more usable for extreme event statistics.

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“…This is particularly relevant for Australasia, where climate variability has strong agricultural, socioeconomic, and environmental impacts (Head et al, 2014;Kiem et al, 2016;van Dijk et al, 2013). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) previously supported a 2000-year baseline to establish climate variability for Earth .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low-resolution Australasian palaeoclimate records of the last 2000 years

et al. 2017

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Abstract. Non-annually resolved palaeoclimate records in the Australasian region were compiled to facilitate investigations of decadal to centennial climate variability over the past 2000 years. A total of 675 lake and wetland, geomorphic, marine, and speleothem records were identified. The majority of records are located near population centres in southeast Australia, in New Zealand, and across the maritime continent, and there are few records from the arid regions of central and western Australia. Each record was assessed against a set of a priori criteria based on temporal resolution, record length, dating methods, and confidence in the proxy-climate relationship over the Common Era. A subset of 22 records met the criteria and were endorsed for subsequent analyses. Chronological uncertainty was the primary reason why records did not meet the selection criteria. New chronologies based on Bayesian techniques were constructed for the high-quality subset to ensure a consistent approach to age modelling and quantification of age uncertainties. The primary reasons for differences between published and reconstructed age-depth models were the consideration of the non-singular distribution of ages in calibrated 14 C dates and the use of estimated autocorrelation between sampled depths as a constraint for changes in accumulation rate. Existing proxies and reconstruction techniques that successfully capture climate variability in the region show potential to address spatial gaps and expand the range of climate variables covering the last 2000 years in the Australasian region. Future palaeoclimate research and records in Australasia could be greatly improved through three main actions: (i) greater data availability through the public archiving of published records; (ii) thorough characterisation of proxy-climate relationships through site monitoring and climate sensitivity tests; and (iii) improvement of chronologies through coretop dating, inclusion of tephra layers where possible, and increased date density during the Common Era.

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Natural hazards in Australia: droughts

Cited by 207 publications

References 86 publications

Global drought and severe drought-affected populations in 1.5 and 2 °C warmer worlds

Global drought and severe drought-affected populations in 1.5 and 2 °C warmer worlds

SMOS brightness temperature assimilation into the Community Land Model

Low-resolution Australasian palaeoclimate records of the last 2000 years

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