Ocean and land forcing of the record-breaking Dust Bowl heatwaves across central United States
The severe drought of the 1930s Dust Bowl decade coincided with record-breaking summer heatwaves that contributed to the socio-economic and ecological disaster over North America’s Great Plains. It remains unresolved to what extent these exceptional heatwaves, hotter than in historically forced coup...
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ftusqland:oai:research.usq.edu.au:q5vww 2024-01-28T10:07:38+01:00 Ocean and land forcing of the record-breaking Dust Bowl heatwaves across central United States Cowan, Tim Hegerl, Gabriele C. Schurer, Andrew Tett, Simon F. B. Vautard, Robert Yiou, Pascal Jezequel, Aglae Otto, Friederike E. L. Harrington, Luke J. Ng, Benjamin 2020 application/pdf https://research.usq.edu.au/item/q5vww/ocean-and-land-forcing-of-the-record-breaking-dust-bowl-heatwaves-across-central-united-states https://research.usq.edu.au/download/e519a0e010feb1951782185aa558904ff054e068bc04acb7218ecbe8a474d709/2303890/s41467-020-16676-w.pdf https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16676-w unknown Nature Publishing Group https://research.usq.edu.au/download/e519a0e010feb1951782185aa558904ff054e068bc04acb7218ecbe8a474d709/2303890/s41467-020-16676-w.pdf https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16676-w Cowan, Tim, Hegerl, Gabriele C., Schurer, Andrew, Tett, Simon F. B., Vautard, Robert, Yiou, Pascal, Jezequel, Aglae, Otto, Friederike E. L., Harrington, Luke J. and Ng, Benjamin. 2020. "Ocean and land forcing of the record-breaking Dust Bowl heatwaves across central United States." Nature Communications. 11 (1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16676-w CC BY 4.0 temperature extreme event heat waves precipitation indices Dust Bowl drought drought article PeerReviewed 2020 ftusqland https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16676-w 2024-01-01T23:33:47Z The severe drought of the 1930s Dust Bowl decade coincided with record-breaking summer heatwaves that contributed to the socio-economic and ecological disaster over North America’s Great Plains. It remains unresolved to what extent these exceptional heatwaves, hotter than in historically forced coupled climate model simulations, were forced by sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and exacerbated through human-induced deterioration of land cover. Here we show, using an atmospheric-only model, that anomalously warm North Atlantic SSTs enhance heatwave activity through an association with drier spring conditions resulting from weaker moisture transport. Model devegetation simulations, that represent the wide-spread exposure of bare soil in the 1930s, suggest human activity fueled stronger and more frequent heatwaves through greater evaporative drying in the warmer months. This study highlights the potential for the amplification of naturally occurring extreme events like droughts by vegetation feedbacks to create more extreme heatwaves in a warmer world. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic University of Southern Queensland: USQ ePrints Nature Communications 11 1 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Southern Queensland: USQ ePrints |
op_collection_id |
ftusqland |
language |
unknown |
topic |
temperature extreme event heat waves precipitation indices Dust Bowl drought drought |
spellingShingle |
temperature extreme event heat waves precipitation indices Dust Bowl drought drought Cowan, Tim Hegerl, Gabriele C. Schurer, Andrew Tett, Simon F. B. Vautard, Robert Yiou, Pascal Jezequel, Aglae Otto, Friederike E. L. Harrington, Luke J. Ng, Benjamin Ocean and land forcing of the record-breaking Dust Bowl heatwaves across central United States |
topic_facet |
temperature extreme event heat waves precipitation indices Dust Bowl drought drought |
description |
The severe drought of the 1930s Dust Bowl decade coincided with record-breaking summer heatwaves that contributed to the socio-economic and ecological disaster over North America’s Great Plains. It remains unresolved to what extent these exceptional heatwaves, hotter than in historically forced coupled climate model simulations, were forced by sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and exacerbated through human-induced deterioration of land cover. Here we show, using an atmospheric-only model, that anomalously warm North Atlantic SSTs enhance heatwave activity through an association with drier spring conditions resulting from weaker moisture transport. Model devegetation simulations, that represent the wide-spread exposure of bare soil in the 1930s, suggest human activity fueled stronger and more frequent heatwaves through greater evaporative drying in the warmer months. This study highlights the potential for the amplification of naturally occurring extreme events like droughts by vegetation feedbacks to create more extreme heatwaves in a warmer world. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Cowan, Tim Hegerl, Gabriele C. Schurer, Andrew Tett, Simon F. B. Vautard, Robert Yiou, Pascal Jezequel, Aglae Otto, Friederike E. L. Harrington, Luke J. Ng, Benjamin |
author_facet |
Cowan, Tim Hegerl, Gabriele C. Schurer, Andrew Tett, Simon F. B. Vautard, Robert Yiou, Pascal Jezequel, Aglae Otto, Friederike E. L. Harrington, Luke J. Ng, Benjamin |
author_sort |
Cowan, Tim |
title |
Ocean and land forcing of the record-breaking Dust Bowl heatwaves across central United States |
title_short |
Ocean and land forcing of the record-breaking Dust Bowl heatwaves across central United States |
title_full |
Ocean and land forcing of the record-breaking Dust Bowl heatwaves across central United States |
title_fullStr |
Ocean and land forcing of the record-breaking Dust Bowl heatwaves across central United States |
title_full_unstemmed |
Ocean and land forcing of the record-breaking Dust Bowl heatwaves across central United States |
title_sort |
ocean and land forcing of the record-breaking dust bowl heatwaves across central united states |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://research.usq.edu.au/item/q5vww/ocean-and-land-forcing-of-the-record-breaking-dust-bowl-heatwaves-across-central-united-states https://research.usq.edu.au/download/e519a0e010feb1951782185aa558904ff054e068bc04acb7218ecbe8a474d709/2303890/s41467-020-16676-w.pdf https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16676-w |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_relation |
https://research.usq.edu.au/download/e519a0e010feb1951782185aa558904ff054e068bc04acb7218ecbe8a474d709/2303890/s41467-020-16676-w.pdf https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16676-w Cowan, Tim, Hegerl, Gabriele C., Schurer, Andrew, Tett, Simon F. B., Vautard, Robert, Yiou, Pascal, Jezequel, Aglae, Otto, Friederike E. L., Harrington, Luke J. and Ng, Benjamin. 2020. "Ocean and land forcing of the record-breaking Dust Bowl heatwaves across central United States." Nature Communications. 11 (1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16676-w |
op_rights |
CC BY 4.0 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16676-w |
container_title |
Nature Communications |
container_volume |
11 |
container_issue |
1 |
_version_ |
1789335576531435520 |