TY - JOUR
T1 - Megadroughts in the Common Era and the Anthropocene
AU - Cook, Benjamin I.
AU - Smerdon, Jason E.
AU - Cook, Edward R.
AU - Williams, A. Park
AU - Anchukaitis, Kevin J.
AU - Mankin, Justin S.
AU - Allen, Kathryn
AU - Andreu-Hayles, Laia
AU - Ault, Toby R.
AU - Belmecheri, Soumaya
AU - Coats, Sloan
AU - Coulthard, Bethany
AU - Fosu, Boniface
AU - Grierson, Pauline
AU - Griffin, Daniel
AU - Herrera, Dimitris A.
AU - Ionita, Monica
AU - Lehner, Flavio
AU - Leland, Caroline
AU - Marvel, Kate
AU - Morales, Mariano S.
AU - Mishra, Vimal
AU - Ngoma, Justine
AU - Nguyen, Hung T. T.
AU - O'Donnell, Alison
AU - Palmer, Jonathan
AU - Rao, Mukund P.
AU - Rodriguez-Caton, Milagros
AU - Seager, Richard
AU - Stahle, David W.
AU - Stevenson, Samantha
AU - Thapa, Uday K.
AU - Varuolo-Clarke, Arianna M.
AU - Wise, Erika K.
PY - 2022/11
Y1 - 2022/11
N2 - Exceptional drought events, known as megadroughts, have occurred on every continent outside Antarctica over the past similar to 2,000 years, causing major ecological and societal disturbances. In this Review, we discuss shared causes and features of Common Era (Year 1-present) and future megadroughts. Decadal variations in sea surface temperatures are the primary driver of megadroughts, with secondary contributions from radiative forcing and land-atmosphere interactions. Anthropogenic climate change has intensified ongoing megadroughts in southwestern North America and across Chile and Argentina. Future megadroughts will be substantially warmer than past events, with this warming driving projected increases in megadrought risk and severity across many regions, including western North America, Central America, Europe and the Mediterranean, extratropical South America, and Australia. However, several knowledge gaps currently undermine confidence in understanding past and future megadroughts. These gaps include a paucity of high-resolution palaeoclinnate information over Africa, tropical South America and other regions; incomplete representations of internal variability and land surface processes in climate models; and the undetermined capacity of water-resource management systems to mitigate megadrought impacts. Addressing these deficiencies will be crucial for increasing confidence in projections of future megadrought risk and for resiliency planning.
AB - Exceptional drought events, known as megadroughts, have occurred on every continent outside Antarctica over the past similar to 2,000 years, causing major ecological and societal disturbances. In this Review, we discuss shared causes and features of Common Era (Year 1-present) and future megadroughts. Decadal variations in sea surface temperatures are the primary driver of megadroughts, with secondary contributions from radiative forcing and land-atmosphere interactions. Anthropogenic climate change has intensified ongoing megadroughts in southwestern North America and across Chile and Argentina. Future megadroughts will be substantially warmer than past events, with this warming driving projected increases in megadrought risk and severity across many regions, including western North America, Central America, Europe and the Mediterranean, extratropical South America, and Australia. However, several knowledge gaps currently undermine confidence in understanding past and future megadroughts. These gaps include a paucity of high-resolution palaeoclinnate information over Africa, tropical South America and other regions; incomplete representations of internal variability and land surface processes in climate models; and the undetermined capacity of water-resource management systems to mitigate megadrought impacts. Addressing these deficiencies will be crucial for increasing confidence in projections of future megadrought risk and for resiliency planning.
KW - ANTHROPOGENIC CLIMATE-CHANGE
KW - VAPOR-PRESSURE DEFICIT
KW - COLORADO RIVER-BASIN
KW - NORTH-AMERICAN
KW - LAST MILLENNIUM
KW - PERSISTENT DROUGHT
KW - MONSOON ASIA
KW - TREE-RINGS
KW - RAINFALL RECONSTRUCTION
KW - HYDROCLIMATE RESPONSES
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85139443574&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s43017-022-00329-1
DO - 10.1038/s43017-022-00329-1
M3 - Review article
VL - 3
SP - 741
EP - 757
JO - Nature Reviews Earth and Environment
JF - Nature Reviews Earth and Environment
SN - 2662-138X
IS - 11
ER -