Robust Future Changes in Meteorological Drought in CMIP6 Projections Despite Uncertainty in Precipitation

Anna M. Ukkola; Martin G. De Kauwe; Michael L. Roderick; Gab Abramowitz; Andrew J. Pitman

doi:10.1029/2020GL087820

Robust Future Changes in Meteorological Drought in CMIP6 Projections Despite Uncertainty in Precipitation

Anna M. Ukkola^*, Martin G. De Kauwe, Michael L. Roderick, Gab Abramowitz, Andrew J. Pitman

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

284 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Quantifying how climate change drives drought is a priority to inform policy and adaptation planning. We show that the latest Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) simulations project coherent regional patterns in meteorological drought for two emissions scenarios to 2100. We find robust projected changes in seasonal drought duration and frequency (robust over >45% of the global land area), despite a lack of agreement across models in projected changes in mean precipitation (24% of the land area). Future drought changes are larger and more consistent in CMIP6 compared to CMIP5. We find regionalized increases and decreases in drought duration and frequency that are driven by changes in both precipitation mean and variability. Conversely, drought intensity increases over most regions but is not simulated well historically by the climate models. The more robust projections of meteorological drought compared to mean precipitation in CMIP6 provides significant new opportunities for water resource planning.

Original language	English
Article number	e2020GL087820
Journal	Geophysical Research Letters
Volume	47
Issue number	11
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087820
Publication status	Published - 16 Jun 2020

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The research was funded by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CE170100023). M.?D.?K. acknowledges support from the NSW Research Attraction and Acceleration Program, and M.?D.?K. and A.?J.?P. also acknowledge the ARC Discovery Grant (DP190101823). We are grateful to the National Computational Infrastructure at the Australian National University and the Earth System Grid Federation for making the CMIP6 and CMIP5 model outputs available. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme, which, through its Working Group on Coupled Modelling, coordinated and promoted CMIP6 and CMIP5. We thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making available their model output, the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) for archiving the data and providing access, and the multiple funding agencies who support CMIP6, CMIP5, and ESGF. The CMIP6 and CMIP5 outputs used in this study are available from the Earth System Grid Federation (https://esgf-node.llnl.gov). The observed precipitation data sets can be obtained from CRU (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/data/), GPCC (https://www.dwd.de/EN/ourservices/gpcc/gpcc.html), and REGEN (https://researchdata.ands.org.au/rainfall-estimates-gridded-v1-2019/1408744/). The analysis codes are available online (https://github.com/aukkola/CMIP5_on_NCI and https://bitbucket.org/aukkola/cmip6_drought_projections).

Funding Information:
The research was funded by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CE170100023). M. D. K. acknowledges support from the NSW Research Attraction and Acceleration Program, and M. D. K. and A. J. P. also acknowledge the ARC Discovery Grant (DP190101823). We are grateful to the National Computational Infrastructure at the Australian National University and the Earth System Grid Federation for making the CMIP6 and CMIP5 model outputs available. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme, which, through its Working Group on Coupled Modelling, coordinated and promoted CMIP6 and CMIP5. We thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making available their model output, the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) for archiving the data and providing access, and the multiple funding agencies who support CMIP6, CMIP5, and ESGF. The CMIP6 and CMIP5 outputs used in this study are available from the Earth System Grid Federation ( https://esgf-node.llnl.gov ). The observed precipitation data sets can be obtained from CRU ( http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/data/ ), GPCC ( https://www.dwd.de/EN/ourservices/gpcc/gpcc.html ), and REGEN ( https://researchdata.ands.org.au/rainfall-estimates-gridded-v1-2019/1408744/ ). The analysis codes are available online ( https://github.com/aukkola/CMIP5_on_NCI and https://bitbucket.org/aukkola/cmip6_drought_projections ).

Publisher Copyright:
©2020. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.

Keywords

climate change
CMIP6
drought
precipitation

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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title = "Robust Future Changes in Meteorological Drought in CMIP6 Projections Despite Uncertainty in Precipitation",

abstract = "Quantifying how climate change drives drought is a priority to inform policy and adaptation planning. We show that the latest Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) simulations project coherent regional patterns in meteorological drought for two emissions scenarios to 2100. We find robust projected changes in seasonal drought duration and frequency (robust over >45% of the global land area), despite a lack of agreement across models in projected changes in mean precipitation (24% of the land area). Future drought changes are larger and more consistent in CMIP6 compared to CMIP5. We find regionalized increases and decreases in drought duration and frequency that are driven by changes in both precipitation mean and variability. Conversely, drought intensity increases over most regions but is not simulated well historically by the climate models. The more robust projections of meteorological drought compared to mean precipitation in CMIP6 provides significant new opportunities for water resource planning.",

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author = "Ukkola, {Anna M.} and {De Kauwe}, {Martin G.} and Roderick, {Michael L.} and Gab Abramowitz and Pitman, {Andrew J.}",

note = "Funding Information: The research was funded by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CE170100023). M.?D.?K. acknowledges support from the NSW Research Attraction and Acceleration Program, and M.?D.?K. and A.?J.?P. also acknowledge the ARC Discovery Grant (DP190101823). We are grateful to the National Computational Infrastructure at the Australian National University and the Earth System Grid Federation for making the CMIP6 and CMIP5 model outputs available. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme, which, through its Working Group on Coupled Modelling, coordinated and promoted CMIP6 and CMIP5. We thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making available their model output, the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) for archiving the data and providing access, and the multiple funding agencies who support CMIP6, CMIP5, and ESGF. The CMIP6 and CMIP5 outputs used in this study are available from the Earth System Grid Federation (https://esgf-node.llnl.gov). The observed precipitation data sets can be obtained from CRU (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/data/), GPCC (https://www.dwd.de/EN/ourservices/gpcc/gpcc.html), and REGEN (https://researchdata.ands.org.au/rainfall-estimates-gridded-v1-2019/1408744/). The analysis codes are available online (https://github.com/aukkola/CMIP5_on_NCI and https://bitbucket.org/aukkola/cmip6_drought_projections). Funding Information: The research was funded by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CE170100023). M. D. K. acknowledges support from the NSW Research Attraction and Acceleration Program, and M. D. K. and A. J. P. also acknowledge the ARC Discovery Grant (DP190101823). We are grateful to the National Computational Infrastructure at the Australian National University and the Earth System Grid Federation for making the CMIP6 and CMIP5 model outputs available. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme, which, through its Working Group on Coupled Modelling, coordinated and promoted CMIP6 and CMIP5. We thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making available their model output, the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) for archiving the data and providing access, and the multiple funding agencies who support CMIP6, CMIP5, and ESGF. The CMIP6 and CMIP5 outputs used in this study are available from the Earth System Grid Federation ( https://esgf-node.llnl.gov ). The observed precipitation data sets can be obtained from CRU ( http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/data/ ), GPCC ( https://www.dwd.de/EN/ourservices/gpcc/gpcc.html ), and REGEN ( https://researchdata.ands.org.au/rainfall-estimates-gridded-v1-2019/1408744/ ). The analysis codes are available online ( https://github.com/aukkola/CMIP5_on_NCI and https://bitbucket.org/aukkola/cmip6_drought_projections ). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright}2020. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.",

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Robust Future Changes in Meteorological Drought in CMIP6 Projections Despite Uncertainty in Precipitation

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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