The Outstanding 2004/05 Drought in the Iberian Peninsula: Associated Atmospheric Circulation

Advances in Meteorology

Russo

et al. 2017

The Iberian Peninsula (IP) is a drought-prone area located in the Mediterranean which presents a significant tendency towards dryness during the last decades, reinforcing the need for a continuous monitoring of drought. The long-term evolution of drought in the IP is analyzed, using the Standardized Precipitation Evaporation Index (SPEI) and the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), for the period of 1901-2012 and for three subperiods: 1901-1937, 1938-1974, and 1975-2012. SPI and SPEI were calculated with a 12-month time scale, using data from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) database. Trends in the drought indices, precipitation, and reference evapotranspiration (ET 0 ) were analysed and series of drought duration, drought magnitude, time between drought events, and mean intensity of the events were computed. SPI and SPEI significant trends show areas with opposite signals in the period 1901-2012, mainly associated with precipitation trends, which are significant and positive in the northwestern region and significant and negative in the southern areas. Additionally, SPEI identified dryer conditions and an increase in the area affected by droughts, which agrees with the increase in ET 0 . The same spatial differences were identified in the drought duration, magnitude, mean intensity, and time between drought events.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 59%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drought Trends in the Iberian Peninsula over the Last 112 Years

Páscoa

Advances in Meteorology

Russo

et al. 2017

“…This dataset has already been used to analyze extreme dry precipitation episodes over different regions, such as Iberia (García-Herrera et al 2007) and the Middle East . The GPCC products are based on in situ rain gauge data and cover the period from 1901 to present through two gridded datasets: the so-called full data product , which is continuously updated with all available stations, and the monitoring product (2007-present) that only uses a network of near-real-time stations.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The 2009/10 Drought in China: Possible Causes and Impacts on Vegetation

Barriopedro

Journal of Hydrometeorology

Trigo

et al. 2012

Self Cite

212

125

Several provinces of China experienced an intense drought episode during 2009 and 2010. The drought was particularly severe in southwestern and northern China, where the accumulated precipitation from May 2009 to April 2010 was about 25% less than normal. The decline of accumulated precipitation over northern China was mostly noticeable during the summer season of 2009 and it was comparable to recent dry episodes. The southwestern China drought resulted from a sequence of dry months from summer 2009 to winter 2010, corresponding to the driest event since at least 1951. The suppression of rainfall in summer over both regions was in agreement with a weakened broad-scale South Asian summer monsoon, possibly influenced by an El Niñ o developing phase, whereas the extremely negative phases of the Arctic Oscillation during the winter of 2010 may have contributed to the persistence of the drought in southwestern China. The assessment of the associated impacts indicates that water reservoirs were severely affected with a ;20% reduction in the nationwide hydroelectrical production during the drought event. Furthermore, an analysis of the normalized difference vegetation index data reveals that large cropland sectors of northern and eastern China experienced up to 8 months of persistently stressed vegetation between May 2009 and July 2010, while southwestern China was relatively less affected. Such different regional vegetative responses are interpreted in terms of the land-cover type, agriculture management, and their dependence on seasonal precipitation and water availability for irrigation.

“…In the last decade, Europe has experienced multiple extreme weather (EW) events (Hov et al, 2013), such as the devastating floods in Central Europe in 2002 (Sánchez et al, 2004) and 2013 (Grams et al, 2014) and the severe droughts that hit the Iberian Peninsula (IP) in 2004/2005(Garcia-Herrera et al, 2007 and 2011/2012 and western Russia and Ukraine in 2010 (Sánchez et al, 2004;Hov et al, 2013). Unprecedented mega heat waves have also struck Western Europe in 2003 (Garcia-Herrera et al, 2007) and Russia/Eastern Europe in 2010 (Barriopedro et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of circulation weather patterns at different spatial scales on drought variability in the Iberian Peninsula

Russo

Trigo

et al. 2015

Front. Environ. Sci.

Self Cite

Europe has suffered several extreme weather events which were responsible for considerable ecological and economic losses in the last few decades. In Southern Europe, droughts are one of the most frequent extreme weather events, causing severe damages and various fatalities. The main goal of this study is to determine the role of Circulation Weather Types (CWT) on spatial and temporal variability of droughts by means of the multi-scalar Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). This study aims also to identify the main CWTs associated with winter and summer droughts over different regions of Iberian Peninsula. During the period between 1950 and 2012, the most frequent CWTs were found to be the Anticyclonic (A), Cyclonic (C), North (N) and Northeast (NE) types. The trend analysis for winter season shows a clear increase of frequency CWTs associated to dry events (A, East and Southeast) and a decrease of frequency of C and northern types while in summer a clear decrease of NE is observed. The spatial patterns of correlation between SPEI and CWT show large patterns of negative correlations with winter frequencies of A and eastern weather types, while the reverse occurs with C and western types. This feature is highlighted on a regional approach. The NE type presents negative correlations in Central, Northwestern and Southwestern regions during winter and positive correlations in Eastern region during summer. In opposition, the West type presents positive correlations in all regions (except Eastern region) during winter and does not present significant correlations during summer. In general, the predominant CWT associated to winter or summer drought conditions differs greatly between regions. The winter droughts are associated mainly with high frequency of E types and low frequency of W types for all areas, while the summer drought in eastern sectors are linked with low frequency of C type, as well as the western regions are related with the N type.