Projected drought risk in 1.5°C and 2°C warmer climates

Lehner, Flavio; Coats, Sloan; Stocker, Thomas F.; Pendergrass, Angeline G.; Sanderson, Benjamin M.; Raible, Christoph C.; Smerdon, Jason E.

doi:10.1002/2017gl074117

Cited by 258 publications

(214 citation statements)

References 88 publications

(109 reference statements)

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“…Precipitation has begun to exhibit either a long-term downward trend, mainly in the dry season [22], or no significant change [2,3,20] although in all cases a rise in potential evapotranspiration has led to increased aridity [2,3]. In South California and South Africa similar trends have been observed in the recent past and are projected for the coming decades [23,24].…”

Section: Current Climate Changesupporting

confidence: 50%

Impacts of Global Change on Mediterranean Forests and Their Services

Peñuelas

Sardans

Filella

et al. 2017

Forests

120

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The increase in aridity, mainly by decreases in precipitation but also by higher temperatures, is likely the main threat to the diversity and survival of Mediterranean forests. Changes in land use, including the abandonment of extensive crop activities, mainly in mountains and remote areas, and the increases in human settlements and demand for more resources with the resulting fragmentation of the landscape, hinder the establishment of appropriate management tools to protect Mediterranean forests and their provision of services and biodiversity. Experiments and observations indicate that if changes in climate, land use and other components of global change, such as pollution and overexploitation of resources, continue, the resilience of many forests will likely be exceeded, altering their structure and function and changing, mostly decreasing, their capacity to continue to provide their current services. A consistent assessment of the impacts of the changes, however, remains elusive due to the difficulty of obtaining simultaneous and complete data for all scales of the impacts in the same forests, areas and regions. We review the impacts of climate change and other components of global change and their interactions on the terrestrial forests of Mediterranean regions, with special attention to their impacts on ecosystem services. Management tools for counteracting the negative effects of global change on Mediterranean ecosystem- services are finally discussed.

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Section: Current Climate Changesupporting

confidence: 50%

Impacts of Global Change on Mediterranean Forests and Their Services

Peñuelas

Sardans

Filella

et al. 2017

Forests

120

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“…Global‐scale SM drying has also been corroborated by meteorological drought indices, such as the Palmer Drought Severity Index (Dai et al, ), Standardized Precipitation Index (Hirschi et al, ; Wang et al, ; Zhang et al, ), and Aridity Index (Huang et al, ). When evaluated by Palmer Drought Severity Index, outputs of climate models projected globally higher drought risk and expansion of drying areas in warmer climate (Cook et al, ; Lehner et al, ). SM drying can potentially lead to agricultural droughts, such as the 2010 Chinese drought (Pradhan et al, ) and 2004 Cambodian drought (Gines et al, ), both of which resulted in food production reductions, for example, the 82% loss of the potential harvest in the 2004 Cambodian drought (Gines et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attribution of Global Soil Moisture Drying to Human Activities: A Quantitative Viewpoint

Zhang

et al. 2019

Geophysical Research Letters

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Anthropogenic impacts on widespread global soil moisture (SM) drying in the root zone layer during 1948–2005 were evaluated based on the Global Land Data Assimilation System version 2 (GLDAS‐2) and global climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 using trend analysis and optimal fingerprint methods. Both methods show agreement that natural forcing alone cannot drive significant SM drying. There is a high probability (≥90%) that the anthropogenic climate change signal is detectable in global SM drying. Specifically, anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing can lead to global SM drying by 2.1 × 10−3 m3/m3, which is comparable to the drying trend seen in Global Land Data Assimilation System version 2 (2.4 × 10−3 m3/m3) over the past 58 years. Global SM drying is expected to continue in the future, given continuous greenhouse gas emissions.

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“…The translation of these global warming levels to regional-scale (i.e., impact-relevant scale) consequences receives particular interest, because this information is fundamental to proposing actionable adaptation and mitigation options (Diffenbaugh et al, 2018;Seneviratne et al, 2016;Stammer et al, 2018). In this context, the priority of projection efforts has been placed on distinct responses of socioeconomically costly weather and climate extremes at regional scales to 1.5 versus 2°C of global warming, interpreted as "avoided risks" due to the 0.5°C difference Nangombe et al, 2018;Lehner et al, 2017;Lewis, King, & Mitchell, 2017). Through comparison, those regions where impact-relevant quantities of extremes are especially responsive to global warming could be recognized as climate change hot spots ©2019.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Half‐a‐Degree Matters for Reducing and Delaying Global Land Exposure to Combined Daytime‐Nighttime Hot Extremes

et al. 2019

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The Paris Agreement has motivated rapid analysis differentiating changes in frequency/intensity of weather and climate extremes in 1.5 versus 2°C warmer worlds. However, implications of these global warming levels on locations, spatial scales, and emergence timings of hot spots to extremes are more relevant to policy-making but remain strikingly under-addressed. Based on a bivariate definitional framework, we show that compared to 2°C, the 1.5°C target could avoid a transition of prevailing type of summertime hot extremes from daytime-/nighttime-only events to combined daytime-nighttime hot extremes in approximately 18% of global continents and protect 14-26% of land areas from seeing over threefold-totenfold increases in occurrence of combined hot extremes. This half-a-degree reduction also matters for around 21% of global lands, mostly within the tropics, in constraining historically unprecedented combined hot extremes from becoming the new norm within just one to three decades ahead. By contrast, previous analyses based on univariate-defined hot days substantially underestimate the magnitude, areal extent, and emergence rate of 0.5°C-caused aggravation of summertime hot extremes. These projected changes of bivariate-classified hot extremes, therefore, underline not only the imperative but also the urgency of striving for the lower Paris target.Plain Language Summary Since the milestone Paris Agreement, policymakers are eager to know the extent to which and the time when their own regions will suffer from consequences associated with pertinent global warming levels (1.5 and 2°C). We show that even the aspirational 1.5°C target would still be translated into huge threats from summertime hot extremes to the tropics, as manifested by a type transition toward health-damaging daytime-nighttime combined heat and threefold-to-tenfold increases in its occurrence. Further rise to 2°C would put an extra 20% of global continents at risk from similar transitions and increases. Unexpectedly, despite involving substantial reduction in carbon emissions, the 2°C-compatible development pathway would bring about a rapidly emerging novel era of hot extremes for most tropical countries, where historically unprecedented daytime-nighttime combined heat will be registered every other year within the next one to three decades and thereafter. Our results highlight that the extra 0.5°C of global warming, from 1.5 to 2°C, would impose the earliest and severest heat-related consequences on the least-developed regions, whose adaptive capacity is unfortunately very limited.

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Projected drought risk in 1.5°C and 2°C warmer climates

Cited by 258 publications

References 88 publications

Impacts of Global Change on Mediterranean Forests and Their Services

Impacts of Global Change on Mediterranean Forests and Their Services

Attribution of Global Soil Moisture Drying to Human Activities: A Quantitative Viewpoint

Half‐a‐Degree Matters for Reducing and Delaying Global Land Exposure to Combined Daytime‐Nighttime Hot Extremes

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