The 2022 extreme drought in the Yangtze River Basin: Characteristics, causes and response strategies

Ma, Miaomiao; Qu, Yanping; Lyu, Juan; Zhang, Xuejun; Su, Zushang; Gao, Hui; Yang, Xiaojing; Chen, Xixi; Jiang, Tianliang; Zhang, Jiexiang; Shen, Mengyan; Wang, Zhe

doi:10.1002/rvr2.23

Cited by 34 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…S3). These periods were characterized by exceptionally high widespread meteorological, hydrological, and soil droughts that pose a significant threat to water resources for domestic, agricultural, ecological, and human needs (Ma et al, 2022;Bonaldo et al, 2023). Therefore, this section primarily focuses on these two extreme drought processes in 2013 and 2022.…”

Section: Influences Of Extreme Drought and Precipitation Events On Th...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal variation and influence factors of river water isotopes in the East Asian monsoon region: A case study in Xiangjiang River basin spanning 13 hydrological years

Xiao

Rao

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Abstract. Seasonal variation and influencing factors of water isotopes were investigated in the Xiangjiang River basin, located in the East Asian monsoon region. This involved comprehensive sampling of precipitation and river water, as well as observing hydrometeorological factors spanning 13 hydrological years from January 2010 to December 2022. Key findings are as follows: River water δ2H (δ2HR) exhibited significant seasonal variation, with the most positive and negative δ2HR occurring in the spring flood period and summer drought, respectively, and generally aligned with those observed in precipitation. The correlations of the δ2HR with the corresponding hydrometeorological factors were generally weak and the reasons can be attributed to the seasonality of precipitation isotopes and mixing of various water bodies within the basin, but the changes in the runoff (ΔR) and δ2HR (Δδ2HR) between two contiguous samplings showed significant responses to the corresponding accumulated precipitation and evaporation. These results underscore the potential of Δδ2HR as a variable that reflects the seasonal variations in local environments, valuable for paleoclimate reconstruction. Prolonged rainless intervals with high evaporation rates in 2013 and 2022, as well as significant precipitation events in major flood periods in 2011 and 2017, notably had a significant impact on the δ2HR and runoff discharge. The most positive δ2HR values were primarily influenced by the precipitation input with the most enriched isotopes in the spring flood period, while the moderately isotope-depleted precipitation during limited basin wetness conditions led to the most negative δ2HR, thus caution is advised when interpreting extreme isotopic signals in river water. The spatial correlation analysis between water isotopes and hydrometeorological factors at the observing site and in the surrounding regions supported the representation of the Changsha site in the Xiangjiang River basin. Overall, these findings provide insights into the seasonal variation and influencing factors of δ2HR in the study area, shedding light on the complex dynamics of river water isotopes under different hydrometeorological conditions.

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Section: Influences Of Extreme Drought and Precipitation Events On Th...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal variation and influence factors of river water isotopes in the East Asian monsoon region: A case study in Xiangjiang River basin spanning 13 hydrological years

Xiao

Rao

et al. 2023

Preprint

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“…The rapid and silent propagation of the 2022-23 mega soil moisture drought prevented the stakeholders from taking timely actions, resulting in direct economic losses of 51.28 billion Chinese Yuan. Previous studies have focused on the causes and impacts of this mega drought especially during the onset stage (Ma et al 2022, Liang et al 2023, but have not assessed the predictive skill during the entire evolution processes of the drought.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Skillful seasonal prediction of the 2022–23 mega soil drought over the Yangtze River basin by combining dynamical climate prediction and copula analysis

Wang,

Yuan,

Liu

et al. 2024

Environ. Res. Lett.

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An unprecedented soil moisture drought broke out over the Yangtze River basin (YRB) in the summer of 2022 and lasted until the spring of 2023, caused great economic losses and serious environmental issues. With the rapid onset and long-lasting duration, the mega soil drought challenges the current seasonal prediction capacity. Whether the state-of-the-art climate models provide skillful predictions of the onset, persistence and recovery of the 2022-23 mega soil drought needs to be assessed. Identified by the drought area percentage, here we show that the mega soil drought over the YRB started from July, 2022, reached the peak in August, and diminished in April, 2023. Combined with real-time predictions of monthly precipitation released by three climate models participating in the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) project, we predict the monthly evolution of the 2022-23 soil drought through a joint distribution between precipitation and soil moisture established by the copula method. The results indicate that the NMME/copula prediction well reproduced the spatiotemporal evolution of the mega soil drought at 1-month lead. Using the climatological prediction that relies on the information of initial soil moisture conditions as the reference forecast, the Brier skill score (BSS) values for NMME multi-model ensemble are 0.26, 0.23 and 0.2 for the forecast lead times increased from 1 to 3 months during the entire soil drought period. Specifically, the BSS is 0.14 at 2-month lead during drought onset stage, and 0.26 at 3-month lead during persistence stage, while it is close to zero at all leads during the recovery stage. Our study implies that climate models have great potential in probabilistic seasonal prediction of the onset and persistency of mega soil drought through combining with the copula method.

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“…Especially in July-August of 2022, an unprecedented strong heatwave event swept across East Asia [17][18][19] and the Northwestern Pacific 4,5,20 . The extremeness of this event is the largest in both magnitude and duration, causing substantial loss of economy, human community as well as the marine organisms and ecosystem 5,17,21 . The occurrence of an extreme climate event is usually tied to some extreme influential factors 22 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The dominant role of upper tropospheric-lower stratospheric process in increasing summer heatwave intensity over East Asia and Northwestern Pacific

Zhao,

2024

Preprint

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The unprecedented strong heatwave event in East Asia and the Northwestern Pacific during the summer of 2022 has been attributed to global oceans under global warming1–5. However, their contributions are limited and do not exert a dominant effect on the increase of heatwave intensity, especially in East Asia6,7. Clearly, the reasons for the increasing strong heatwave events remain mysterious. Here we report that the intensified upper troposphere-lower stratosphere (UT-LS) temperature dipole structure plays the dominant role in the escalating trend of heatwave intensity in East Asia and the Northwestern Pacific during the recent decades, while oceans play a minor role. Through observational diagnosis and numerical simulation, we establish that the depleting trend of the lower-stratospheric ozone, along with a thinner ozone layer in the lower-stratosphere, is the primary driver behind the intensified UT-LS dipole structure and the tropospheric warming over extratropical Asia. The warming troposphere increases heatwave intensity in East Asia and the Northwestern Pacific through cloud, radiation, and temperature advection. With further ozone depletion under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 2-4.5 scenario, the projected heatwave events in these areas will likely become stronger. Consequently, the coastal areas of East Asia and Northeast Asia will encounter an increasing risk of strong heatwave events.

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The 2022 extreme drought in the Yangtze River Basin: Characteristics, causes and response strategies

Cited by 34 publications

References 12 publications

Seasonal variation and influence factors of river water isotopes in the East Asian monsoon region: A case study in Xiangjiang River basin spanning 13 hydrological years

Seasonal variation and influence factors of river water isotopes in the East Asian monsoon region: A case study in Xiangjiang River basin spanning 13 hydrological years

Skillful seasonal prediction of the 2022–23 mega soil drought over the Yangtze River basin by combining dynamical climate prediction and copula analysis

The dominant role of upper tropospheric-lower stratospheric process in increasing summer heatwave intensity over East Asia and Northwestern Pacific

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