Journal ArticleDOI
Wet and dry summers in Europe since 1750: evidence of increasing drought
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In this article, the self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI) is calculated using a simplified water budget model, forced by historic records of precipitation and temperature data, where the latter are used in a simple parameterization for potential evaporation.Abstract:
Moisture availability across Europe is calculated based on 22 stations that have long instrumental records for precipitation and temperature. The metric used is the self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI) which is based on soil moisture content. This quantity is calculated using a simplified water budget model, forced by historic records of precipitation and temperature data, where the latter are used in a simple parameterization for potential evaporation. The precipitation and temperature records are updated to include the 2003 summer and all records, except for one, span at least 200 years, with the record for Kew going back to 1697. The Kew record shows a significant clustering of dry summers in the most recent decade. When all the records are considered together, recent widespread drying is clearly apparent and highly significant in this long-term context. By substituting the 1961-1990 climatological monthly mean temperatures for the actual monthly means in the parameterization for potential evaporation, an estimate is made of the direct effect of temperature on drought. This analysis shows that a major influence on the trend toward drier summer conditions is the observed increase in temperatures. This effect is particularly strong in central Europe. Based on the 22 scPDSI records, a gridded scPDSI dataset covering a large part of Europe has been constructed and compared to a recent high-resolution scPDSI dataset spanning the twentieth century only. We again observe that a major cause for the large areal extent of summer drought in the last two decades is high temperatures. Temperatures in the 12 months preceding and including the summer of 2003 explain an increase in the areas experiencing slightly dry (or worse) conditions of 11.1%.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Little change in global drought over the past 60 years
TL;DR: It is shown that the previously reported increase in global drought is overestimated because the PDSI uses a simplified model of potential evaporation that responds only to changes in temperature and thus responds incorrectly to global warming in recent decades.
Journal ArticleDOI
Widespread crown condition decline, food web disruption, and amplified tree mortality with increased climate change-type drought
TL;DR: It is found that defoliation trends are paralleled by significant increases in tree mortality rates in drier areas that are related to tree density and temperature effects, creating long-term disruptive effects of drought on food webs.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mediterranean water resources in a global change scenario
José María García-Ruiz,J. Ignacio López-Moreno,Sergio M. Vicente-Serrano,Teodoro Lasanta Martínez,Santiago Beguería +4 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors forecast an increase in temperature and a decrease in precipitation at the end of the 21st century, which will enhance stress on natural forests and shrubs, and will result in more water consumption, evapotranspiration, and probably interception.
Journal ArticleDOI
21st century climate change in the European Alps--a review.
TL;DR: In this article, the state-of-the-art literature about 21st century climate change in the Alps based on existing literature and additional analyses is reviewed, which explicitly considers the reliability and uncertainty of climate projections.
Journal ArticleDOI
Assessing "dangerous climate change": required reduction of carbon emissions to protect young people, future generations and nature.
James Hansen,Pushker Kharecha,Pushker Kharecha,Makiko Sato,Valérie Masson-Delmotte,Frank Ackerman,David J. Beerling,Paul J. Hearty,Ove Hoegh-Guldberg,Shi-Ling Hsu,Camille Parmesan,Camille Parmesan,Johan Rockström,Eelco J. Rohling,Eelco J. Rohling,Jeffrey D. Sachs,Pete Smith,Konrad Steffen,Lise Van Susteren,Karina von Schuckmann,James C Zachos +20 more
TL;DR: Climate impacts of global warming is assessed using ongoing observations and paleoclimate data and simple representations of the global carbon cycle and temperature to define emission reductions needed to stabilize climate and avoid potentially disastrous impacts on today’s young people, future generations, and nature.
References
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Book Chapter
Global climate projections
Gerald A. Meehl,Thomas F. Stocker,William D. Collins,Pierre Friedlingstein,T. Gaye,Jonathan M. Gregory,A. Kitoh,Reto Knutti,James M. Murphy,Akira Noda,Sarah C. B. Raper,I. G. Watterson,Andrew J. Weaver,Z. C. Zhao +13 more
Journal ArticleDOI
Representing Twentieth-Century Space-Time Climate Variability. Part II: Development of 1901-96 Monthly Grids of Terrestrial Surface Climate
Mark New,Mike Hulme,Phil Jones +2 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe the construction of a 0.58-latent-long gridded dataset of monthly terrestrial surface climate for the period of 1901-96, which consists of seven climate elements: precipitation, mean temperature, diurnal temperature range, wet-day frequency, vapor pressure, cloud cover, and ground frost frequency.
Journal ArticleDOI
A Global Dataset of Palmer Drought Severity Index for 1870–2002: Relationship with Soil Moisture and Effects of Surface Warming
TL;DR: A monthly dataset of Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) from 1870 to 2002 is derived using historical precipitation and temperature data for global land areas on a 2.58 grid as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Representing Twentieth-Century Space–Time Climate Variability. Part I: Development of a 1961–90 Mean Monthly Terrestrial Climatology
Mark New,Mike Hulme,Phil Jones +2 more
TL;DR: In this article, a 0.5° lat × 0. 5° long surface climatology of global land areas, excluding Antarctica, is described, which represents the period 1961-90 and comprises a suite of nine variables: precipitation, wet-day frequency, mean temperature, diurnal temperature range, vapor pressure, sunshine, cloud cover, ground frost frequency, and wind speed.
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