Unfamiliar Territory: Emerging Themes for Ecological Drought Research and Management

Crausbay, Shelley D.; Betancourt, Julio L.; Bradford, John B.; Cartwright, Jennifer M.; Dennison, William C.; Dunham, Jason B.; Enquist, Carolyn A. F.; Frazier, Abby G.; Hall, Kimberly R.; Littell, Jeremy S.; Luce, C. H.; Palmer, Richard N.; Ramirez, Alexander; Rangwala, Imtiaz; Thompson, Laura M.; Walsh, Brianne M.; Carter, Shawn

doi:10.1016/j.oneear.2020.08.019

Cited by 54 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 171 publications

(234 reference statements)

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“…As a result of 1.5 to 2 • C global warming, two-thirds of the world population will experience increasing droughts; the drought magnitude is likely to double in 30% of the global land by the end of this century [19,20]. An important part of drought problem is that its current definitions refer to the drought only from the perspective of human dimensions, focusing primarily on meteorological, agricultural, socioeconomic and cultural impacts without addressing its ecological dimensions [21]. The occurrence of widespread drought in developing and developed societies has underscored the sensitivity of all communities to this natural hazard.…”

Section: Introduction 1climate Change and The Growing Risk Of Drought Hazardmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mediterranean-Scale Drought: Regional Datasets for Exceptional Meteorological Drought Events during 1975–2019

et al. 2021

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Drought is one of the most complex climate-related phenomena and is expected to progressively affect our lives by causing very serious environmental and socioeconomic damage by the end of the 21st century. In this study, we have extracted a dataset of exceptional meteorological drought events between 1975 and 2019 at the country and subregional scales. Each drought event was described by its start and end date, intensity, severity, duration, areal extent, peak month and peak area. To define such drought events and their characteristics, separate analyses based on three drought indices were performed at 12-month timescale: the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), and the Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI). A multivariate combined drought index (DXI) was developed by merging the previous three indices for more understanding of droughts’ features at the country and subregional levels. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to identify five different drought subregions based on DXI-12 values for 312 Mediterranean stations and a new special score was defined to classify the multi-subregional exceptional drought events across the Mediterranean Basin (MED). The results indicated that extensive drought events occurred more frequently since the late 1990s, showing several drought hotspots in the last decades in the southeastern Mediterranean and northwest Africa. In addition, the results showed that the most severe events were more detected when more than single drought index was used. The highest percentage area under drought was also observed through combining the variations of three drought indices. Furthermore, the drought area in both dry and humid areas in the MED has also experienced a remarkable increase since the late 1990s. Based on a comparison of the drought events during the two periods—1975–1996 and 1997–2019—we find that the current dry conditions in the MED are more severe, intense, and frequent than the earlier period; moreover, the strongest dry conditions occurred in last two decades. The SPEI-12 and RDI-12 have a higher capacity in providing a more comprehensive description of the dry conditions because of the inclusion of temperature or atmospheric evaporative demand in their scheme. A complex range of atmospheric circulation patterns, particularly the Western Mediterranean Oscillation (WeMO) and East Atlantic/West Russia (EATL/WRUS), appear to play an important role in severe, intense and region-wide droughts, including the two most severe droughts, 1999–2001 and 2007–2012, with lesser influence of the NAO, ULMO and SCAND.

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Section: Introduction 1climate Change and The Growing Risk Of Drought Hazardmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mediterranean-Scale Drought: Regional Datasets for Exceptional Meteorological Drought Events during 1975–2019

et al. 2021

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“…As quantitative approaches are refined, ecological assessments can apply more qualitative tools, such as inserting historical analogs, what-if scenarios, and worst-case storylines into future projections. This approach especially calls on joint input from scientists and managers drawing on systematic knowledge, experience, and extrapolation to examine less likely, but plausible, high impact events that can accompany cumulative change, especially as systems approach thresholds and undergo transformations [7].…”

Section: Relevance Of Extreme Climate Events In Driving Biological Impactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Climate change is already severely impacting ecosystems and, in the coming decades, it is expected to significantly transform ecosystems and biodiversity from local-to-global scales, degrade ecosystem services, and by extension impact human livelihoods [2,[4][5][6][7][8]. However, understanding the nuanced details of a rapidly changing climate on biodiversity and biological responses at varying temporal and spatial scales is challenging [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncertainty, Complexity and Constraints: How Do We Robustly Assess Biological Responses under a Rapidly Changing Climate?

Rangwala

Moss

Wolken

et al. 2021

Climate

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How robust is our assessment of impacts to ecosystems and species from a rapidly changing climate during the 21st century? We examine the challenges of uncertainty, complexity and constraints associated with applying climate projections to understanding future biological responses. This includes an evaluation of how to incorporate the uncertainty associated with different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios and climate models, and constraints of spatiotemporal scales and resolution of climate data into impact assessments. We describe the challenges of identifying relevant climate metrics for biological impact assessments and evaluate the usefulness and limitations of different methodologies of applying climate change to both quantitative and qualitative assessments. We discuss the importance of incorporating extreme climate events and their stochastic tendencies in assessing ecological impacts and transformation, and provide recommendations for better integration of complex climate–ecological interactions at relevant spatiotemporal scales. We further recognize the compounding nature of uncertainty when accounting for our limited understanding of the interactions between climate and biological processes. Given the inherent complexity in ecological processes and their interactions with climate, we recommend integrating quantitative modeling with expert elicitation from diverse disciplines and experiential understanding of recent climate-driven ecological processes to develop a more robust understanding of ecological responses under different scenarios of future climate change. Inherently complex interactions between climate and biological systems also provide an opportunity to develop wide-ranging strategies that resource managers can employ to prepare for the future.

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“…Climate change is already severely impacting ecosystems and, in the coming decades, it is expected to significantly transform ecosystems and biodiversity from local-to-global scales, degrade ecosystem services, and by extension impact human livelihoods [2,[4][5][6][7]. However, understanding the nuanced details of a rapidly changing climate on biodiversity and biological responses at varying temporal and spatial scales is challenging [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncertainty, Complexity and Constraints: How do We Robustly Assess Biological Responses Under a Rapidly Changing Climate?

Rangwala¹,

Moss²,

Wolken³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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How robust is our assessment of impacts to ecosystems and species from a rapidly changing climate during the 21st century? We examine the challenges of uncertainty, complexity and constraints associated with applying climate projections to understanding future biological responses. This includes an evaluation of how to incorporate the uncertainty associated with different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios and climate models, and constraints of spatiotemporal scales and resolution of climate data into impact assessments. We describe the challenges of identifying relevant climate metrics for ecological models and evaluate the usefulness and limitations of different methodologies of applying climate change to both quantitative and qualitative ecological response models. We discuss the importance of incorporating extreme climate events and their stochastic tendencies in assessing ecological impacts and transformation, and provide recommendations for better integration of complex climate-ecological interactions at relevant spatiotemporal scales. We further recognize the compounding nature of uncertainty when accounting for our limited understanding of the interactions between climate and biological processes. Given the inherent complexity in ecological processes and their interactions with climate, we recommend integrating quantitative modeling with expert elicitation from diverse disciplines and experiential understanding of recent climate-driven ecological processes to develop more robust understanding of ecological responses under different scenarios of future climate change. Inherently complex interactions between climate and biological systems also provide an opportunity to develop wide-ranging strategies that resource managers can employ to prepare for the future.

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Unfamiliar Territory: Emerging Themes for Ecological Drought Research and Management

Cited by 54 publications

References 171 publications

Mediterranean-Scale Drought: Regional Datasets for Exceptional Meteorological Drought Events during 1975–2019

Mediterranean-Scale Drought: Regional Datasets for Exceptional Meteorological Drought Events during 1975–2019

Uncertainty, Complexity and Constraints: How Do We Robustly Assess Biological Responses under a Rapidly Changing Climate?

Uncertainty, Complexity and Constraints: How do We Robustly Assess Biological Responses Under a Rapidly Changing Climate?

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