Exogenous moisture deficit fuels drought risks across China
Intensifying droughts under climatic warming are of widespread concern owing to their devastating impacts on water resources, societies and ecosystems. However, the effects of exogeneous drivers on regional droughts remain poorly understood. Using the Lagrangian method, atmospheric reanalysis data a...
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ftethz:oai:www.research-collection.ethz.ch:20.500.11850/649754 2024-02-11T10:02:33+01:00 Exogenous moisture deficit fuels drought risks across China Wang, Gang Zhang, Qiang Pokhrel, Yadu Farinotti, Daniel id_orcid:0 000-0003-3417-4570 Wang, Jida Singh, Vijay P. Xu, Chong-Yu 2023-12-21 application/application/pdf https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/649754 https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000649754 en eng Nature info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1038/s41612-023-00543-8 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/wos/001128834400002 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/649754 doi:10.3929/ethz-b-000649754 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, 6 (1) info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 2023 ftethz https://doi.org/20.500.11850/64975410.3929/ethz-b-00064975410.1038/s41612-023-00543-8 2024-01-15T00:52:35Z Intensifying droughts under climatic warming are of widespread concern owing to their devastating impacts on water resources, societies and ecosystems. However, the effects of exogeneous drivers on regional droughts remain poorly understood. Using the Lagrangian method, atmospheric reanalysis data and climate projections from the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6), we show how exogenous precipitation minus evaporation (PME) deficit drives droughts across China. More specifically, we demonstrate that four distinct trajectories of such exogenous PME deficit fuel regional droughts. Three of these trajectories relate to oceanic PME deficit originating from the North Atlantic, eastern Bering Sea and Indian Ocean, and one trajectory characterizes exogenous terrestrial PME deficit from the Siberian Plateau. We show that during 1980–2020, droughts induced by exogenous PME deficit account for 45% of all droughts that occurred in China’s coastal region, and for 7% of all droughts in the northwestern regions. Under climate scenario SSP245 (SSP585), limiting warming to 1.5 °C compared to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels could avoid 60% (84%) of exogenous drought exposure. This would in turn reduce population exposure by 40% (49%), and economic exposure by 73% (66%). Our study unravels how exogenous PME deficit drives droughts in China, underscoring the role that external drivers have on regional droughts and associated future prediction. ISSN:2397-3722 Article in Journal/Newspaper Bering Sea North Atlantic ETH Zürich Research Collection Bering Sea Indian |
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ETH Zürich Research Collection |
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English |
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Intensifying droughts under climatic warming are of widespread concern owing to their devastating impacts on water resources, societies and ecosystems. However, the effects of exogeneous drivers on regional droughts remain poorly understood. Using the Lagrangian method, atmospheric reanalysis data and climate projections from the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6), we show how exogenous precipitation minus evaporation (PME) deficit drives droughts across China. More specifically, we demonstrate that four distinct trajectories of such exogenous PME deficit fuel regional droughts. Three of these trajectories relate to oceanic PME deficit originating from the North Atlantic, eastern Bering Sea and Indian Ocean, and one trajectory characterizes exogenous terrestrial PME deficit from the Siberian Plateau. We show that during 1980–2020, droughts induced by exogenous PME deficit account for 45% of all droughts that occurred in China’s coastal region, and for 7% of all droughts in the northwestern regions. Under climate scenario SSP245 (SSP585), limiting warming to 1.5 °C compared to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels could avoid 60% (84%) of exogenous drought exposure. This would in turn reduce population exposure by 40% (49%), and economic exposure by 73% (66%). Our study unravels how exogenous PME deficit drives droughts in China, underscoring the role that external drivers have on regional droughts and associated future prediction. ISSN:2397-3722 |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Wang, Gang Zhang, Qiang Pokhrel, Yadu Farinotti, Daniel id_orcid:0 000-0003-3417-4570 Wang, Jida Singh, Vijay P. Xu, Chong-Yu |
spellingShingle |
Wang, Gang Zhang, Qiang Pokhrel, Yadu Farinotti, Daniel id_orcid:0 000-0003-3417-4570 Wang, Jida Singh, Vijay P. Xu, Chong-Yu Exogenous moisture deficit fuels drought risks across China |
author_facet |
Wang, Gang Zhang, Qiang Pokhrel, Yadu Farinotti, Daniel id_orcid:0 000-0003-3417-4570 Wang, Jida Singh, Vijay P. Xu, Chong-Yu |
author_sort |
Wang, Gang |
title |
Exogenous moisture deficit fuels drought risks across China |
title_short |
Exogenous moisture deficit fuels drought risks across China |
title_full |
Exogenous moisture deficit fuels drought risks across China |
title_fullStr |
Exogenous moisture deficit fuels drought risks across China |
title_full_unstemmed |
Exogenous moisture deficit fuels drought risks across China |
title_sort |
exogenous moisture deficit fuels drought risks across china |
publisher |
Nature |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/649754 https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000649754 |
geographic |
Bering Sea Indian |
geographic_facet |
Bering Sea Indian |
genre |
Bering Sea North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
Bering Sea North Atlantic |
op_source |
npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, 6 (1) |
op_relation |
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1038/s41612-023-00543-8 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/wos/001128834400002 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/649754 doi:10.3929/ethz-b-000649754 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/20.500.11850/64975410.3929/ethz-b-00064975410.1038/s41612-023-00543-8 |
_version_ |
1790598568130641920 |