Extreme dry and wet spells face changes in their duration and timing
| Main Authors: | Korbinian Breinl, Giuliano Di Baldassarre, Maurizio Mazzoleni, David Lun, Giulia Vico |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article eJournal |
| Bahasa: | eng |
| Terbitan: |
, 2020
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: |
https://zenodo.org/record/4043957 |
Daftar Isi:
- Dry spells are sequences of days without precipitation. They can have negative implications for societies, including water security and agriculture. For example, changes in their duration and within-year timing can pose a threat to food production and wildfire risk. Conversely, wet spells are sequences of days with precipitation above a certain threshold, and changes in their duration and within-year timing can impact agriculture, flooding or the prevalence of water-related vector-borne diseases. Here we assess changes in the duration and within-year timing of extreme dry and wet spells over 60 years (1958–2017) using a consistent global land surface precipitation dataset of 5093 rain gauge locations. The dataset allowed for detailed spatial analyses of the United States, Europe and Australia. While many locations exhibit statistically significant changes in the duration of extreme dry and wet spells, the changes in the within-year timing are less often significant. Our results show consistencies with observations and projections from state-of-the-art climate and water resources research. In addition, we provide new insights regarding trends in the timing of extreme dry and wet spells, an aspect being equally important for possible future implications of extremes in a changing climate, which has not yet received the same level of attention and is characterized by larger uncertainty.
- This research has also received funding from the DFG project "SPATE" (FOR 2416), the Swedish Research Council Vetenskapsrådet under grant 2016–04910 and the Swedish Research Council FORMAS under grant 2018-02872. The authors would like to thank the Swedish Research Council FORMAS for research funding, in the frame of the collaborative international consortium STEEP-STREAMS financed under the ERA-NET Cofund WaterWorks2014 Call.