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Little change in global drought over the past 60 years
Abstract
Drought is expected to increase in frequency and severity in the future as a result of climate change, mainly as a consequence of decreases in regional precipitation but also because of increasing evaporation driven by global warming. Previous assessments of historic changes in drought over the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries indicate that this may already be happening globally. In particular, calculations of the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) show a decrease in moisture globally since the 1970s with a commensurate increase in the area in drought that is attributed, in part, to global warming. The simplicity of the PDSI, which is calculated from a simple water-balance model forced by monthly precipitation and temperature data, makes it an attractive tool in large-scale drought assessments, but may give biased results in the context of climate change. Here we show 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. More realistic calculations, based on the underlying physical principles that take into account changes in available energy, humidity and wind speed, suggest that there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years. The results have implications for how we interpret the impact of global warming on the hydrological cycle and its extremes, and may help to explain why palaeoclimate drought reconstructions based on tree-ring data diverge from the PDSI-based drought record in recent years.
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“Two recent studies published in Nature Climate Change 25 and Nature 26 came to opposing conclusions about whether there are noticeable changes in drought trends as a result of climate change.”
From A Big Data Guide to Understanding Climate Change: The Case for Theory-Guided Data Science (2014) · cites this paper as [26]
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“…C cycling to discrete drought events; however, most changes in the regional and global hydrological cycles will occur gradually over long time scales (Sheffield et al., 2012) and as such, the effects of mild water stress on forest C balance represent a key knowledge gap (Gerten et al., 2008).”
BackgroundSynthesis of global actual evapotranspiration from 1982 to 2019
Elnashar, A., Wang, L., Wu, B., Zhu, W., & Zeng, H. (2021) · Earth system science data · doi:10.5194/essd-13-447-2021 · Cited by 198
A High Resolution Dataset of Drought Indices for Spain
Vicente-Serrano, S. M., Tomàs‐Burguera, M., Beguerı́a, S., Reig, F., Latorre, B., Peña‐Gallardo, M., Luna, M. Y., Morata, A., & Hidalgo, J. C. G. (2017) · Data · doi:10.3390/data2030022 · Cited by 200
“In particular, several recent studies have used gridded drought indices at the global scale to determine the recent evolution of climate droughts and the impacts of climate change on drought severity [38,39].”
BackgroundGlobal drought and severe drought-affected populations in 1.5 and 2 °C warmer worlds
Liu, W., Sun, F., Lim, W. H., Zhang, J., Wang, H., Shiogama, H., & Zhang, Y. (2018) · Earth System Dynamics · doi:10.5194/esd-9-267-2018 · Cited by 210
Jehanzaib, M., Shah, S. A., Yoo, J., & Kim, T.-W. (2020) · Journal of Hydrology · doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.125052 · Cited by 194
Caatinga, the Brazilian dry tropical forest: can it tolerate climate changes?
Santos, M. G., de Oliveira, M. T., Figueiredo, K. V., Falcão, H. M., de Arruda, E. C. P., de Almeida‐Cortez, J. S., Sampaio, E. V. D. S. B., Ometto, J. P., Menezes, R. S. C., de Oliveira, A. F. M., et al. (2014) · Theoretical and Experimental Plant Physiology · doi:10.1007/s40626-014-0008-0 · Cited by 192
“However, further analysis taking into account other variables that the most common models do not use, such as wind speed, relative humidity and longwave solar radiation (calculated by using the Penman–Monteith method), has shown little change in areas affected by drought in the last 60 years (Sheffield et al. 2012).”
MethodZhao, T., & Dai, A. (2016) · Climatic Change · doi:10.1007/s10584-016-1742-x · Cited by 196
“There are still large uncertainties, however, in recent and projected future drought changes, especially regarding the extent to which the drought trends will be forced by changes in precipitation versus evaporative demand (Hobbins et al. 2008; Sheffield et al. 2012; Taylor et al. 2013; Trenberth et al. 2014).”
BackgroundInfluentialDoes drought in China show a significant decreasing trend from 1961 to 2009?
Wang, Z., Li, J., Lai, C., Zeng, Z., Zhong, R., Chen, X., Zhou, X., & Wang, M. (2016) · The Science of The Total Environment · doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.11.098 · Cited by 191
On the frequency of the 2015 monsoon season drought in the Indo‐Gangetic Plain
Mishra, V. K., Aadhar, S., Asoka, A., Pai, D. S., & Kumar, R. (2016) · Geophysical Research Letters · doi:10.1002/2016gl071407 · Cited by 187
“As described in Diffenbaugh et al. [2015] the net moisture balance was estimated using the PET estimation based on Thornthwaite method, which may overestimate PET as it is based only on surface air temperature [Sheffield et al., 2012].”
MethodBlauhut, V., Gudmundsson, L., & Stahl, K. (2015) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/10/1/014008 · Cited by 195
Palmer, J., Cook, E. R., TURNEY, C. S. M., Allen, K., Fenwick, P., Cook, B. I., O’Donnell, A. J., Lough, J., Grierson, P. F., & Baker, P. J. (2015) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/124002 · Cited by 183
Kingston, D. G., Stagge, J. H., Tallaksen, L. M., & Hannah, D. M. (2014) · Journal of Climate · doi:10.1175/jcli-d-14-00001.1 · Cited by 183
“For example, reports of increases in the severity and/or magnitude of droughts in recent decades (e.g., Dai 2013) have been questioned by others (e.g., Seneviratne 2012; Sheffield et al. 2012a).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialCharacterization of future drought conditions in the Lower Mekong River Basin
Thilakarathne, M., & Sridhar, V. (2017) · Weather and Climate Extremes · doi:10.1016/j.wace.2017.07.004 · Cited by 180
Terrestrial Aridity and Its Response to Greenhouse Warming across CMIP5 Climate Models
Scheff, J., & Frierson, D. M. W. (2015) · Journal of Climate · doi:10.1175/jcli-d-14-00480.1 · Cited by 183
McEvoy, D. J., Huntington, J., Hobbins, M., Wood, A. W., Morton, C., Anderson, M. C., & Hain, C. (2016) · Journal of Hydrometeorology · doi:10.1175/jhm-d-15-0122.1 · Cited by 177
Mishra, V. K., Aadhar, S., & Mahto, S. S. (2021) · npj Climate and Atmospheric Science · doi:10.1038/s41612-020-00158-3 · Cited by 179
Global hydrological droughts in the 21st century under a changing hydrological regime
Wanders, N., Wada, Y., & Lanen, H. A. J. V. (2015) · Earth System Dynamics · doi:10.5194/esd-6-1-2015 · Cited by 184
“Despite the need for hydrological drought information, most large-scale future drought studies focus either on precipitation or soil moisture (e.g. Burke et al., 2006; Sheffield and Wood, 2008; Sheffield et al., 2012; Dai, 2013; Orlowsky and Seneviratne, 2013; Trenberth et al., 2014).”
BackgroundCumulative Effects of Climatic Factors on Terrestrial Vegetation Growth
Wen, Y., Liu, X., Xin, Q., Wu, J., Xu, X., Pei, F., Li, X., Du, G., Cai, Y., Lin, K., et al. (2019) · Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences · doi:10.1029/2018jg004751 · Cited by 174
Multi-sensor integrated framework and index for agricultural drought monitoring
Zhang, X., Chen, N., Li, J., Chen, Z., & Niyogi, D. (2016) · Remote Sensing of Environment · doi:10.1016/j.rse.2016.10.045 · Cited by 175
Deforestation effects on Amazon forest resilience
Zemp, D. C., Schleussner, C., Barbosa, H. M. J., & Rammig, A. (2017) · Geophysical Research Letters · doi:10.1002/2017gl072955 · Cited by 173
Yun, X., Tang, Q., Wang, J., Liu, X., Zhang, Y., Lu, H. M., Wang, Y., Zhang, L., & Chen, D. (2020) · Journal of Hydrology · doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.125472 · Cited by 172
“In this study, precipitation, temperature and wind speed data at a spatial resolution of 0.25° were obtained from the Global Meteorological Forcing Dataset (GMFD) (Sheffield et al., 2012, 2006) because of its good quality and accuracy in the LMRB (Tatsumi and Yamashiki, 2015).”
MethodInfluentialImpact of agricultural drought on main crop yields in the Republic of Moldova
Potopová, V., Boroneant, C., Boincean, B. P., & Soukup, J. (2015) · International Journal of Climatology · doi:10.1002/joc.4481 · Cited by 178
“…and the nuances of their long-term development and duration, progressive character of impacts, and diffuse spatial limits (Mavromatis, 2007, 2010; Sheffield et al., 2012; Dai, 2013; WMO, 2013; Beguería et al., 2014; Trenberth et al., 2014; Vicente-Serrano et al., 2014a, 2014b, 2014c; Wilhite et…”
Backgroundvan Dijk, A. I. J. M., Renzullo, L. J., Wada, Y., & Tregoning, P. (2014) · Hydrology and earth system sciences · doi:10.5194/hess-18-2955-2014 · Cited by 171
“More accurate global water balance estimates are needed, to better understand interactions between the global climate system and water cycle (Sheffield et al., 2012), the causes of observed sea level rise (Boening et al., 2012; Fasullo et al., 2013; Cazenave et al., 2009; Leuliette and Miller,…”
BackgroundHydrologic extremes – an intercomparison of multiple gridded statistical downscaling methods
Werner, A. T., & Cannon, A. J. (2016) · Hydrology and earth system sciences · doi:10.5194/hess-20-1483-2016 · Cited by 178
“…products have come on line bringing to light possible issues with NCEP1, such as a 5 spurious pattern in precipitation fields at high latitudes (Sheffield et al., 2012), and lack of 6 skill in producing daily air temperature at high-altitudes versus other reanalyses (Hofer et al., 7 2012).”
BackgroundInfluentialOn the relation between weather-related disaster impacts, vulnerability and climate change
Visser, H., Petersen, A. C., & Ligtvoet, W. (2014) · Climatic Change · doi:10.1007/s10584-014-1179-z · Cited by 172
“Additionally, a more recent study by Sheffield et al. (2012) reports little change in global drought over the past 60 years.”
BackgroundA Review of the Applications of ASCAT Soil Moisture Products
Brocca, L., Crow, W. T., Ciabatta, L., Massari, C., de Rosnay, P., Enenkel, M., Hahn, S., Amarnath, G., Camici, S., Tarpanelli, A., et al. (2017) · IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing · doi:10.1109/jstars.2017.2651140 · Cited by 183
“[159] and Dai [53], titled “Little change in global drought over the past 60 years” and “Increasing drought under global warming in observations and models””
BackgroundQuantifying Climate and Catchment Control on Hydrological Drought in the Continental United States
Konapala, G., & Mishra, A. (2020) · Water Resources Research · doi:10.1029/2018wr024620 · Cited by 168
“An inadequate understanding of this complexity can be a major challenge for accurate prediction as well as efficient drought management (Cayan et al., 2010; Mishra & Singh, 2011; Narasimhan & Srinivasan, 2005; Sheffield et al., 2012).”
BackgroundWu, X., Hao, Z., Zhang, X., Li, C., & Hao, F. (2020) · Journal of Hydrology · doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.124580 · Cited by 172
Metadata
- Authors
- Sheffield, J., Wood, E. F., & Roderick, M. L.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- Australian National University (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Sheffield, Justin
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2012-11
- Volume
- 491
- Issue
- 7424
- Pages
- 435-438
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2015522309
- Cited by
- 1,978
- References
- 50
- Citations by year
- 2026: 97 · 2025: 126 · 2024: 131 · 2023: 162 · 2022: 188 · 2021: 196 · 2020: 174 · 2019: 159 · 2018: 160 · 2017: 139 · 2016: 144 · 2015: 121 · 2014: 110 · 2013: 66 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 79.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) (submittedVersion)
- ANU Open Research (Australian National University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Hydrology and Drought Analysis
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
- Keywords
- global drought, Palmer Drought Severity Index, drought trends, potential evaporation, global warming, water cycle, drought indices, climate change impacts, water balance modeling
- MeSH terms
- Models, Theoretical, Temperature, Time Factors, Droughts, Global Warming
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