Journal Article

Northern Hemisphere drought risk in a warming climate

Daniel F. Balting, Amir AghaKouchak, Gerrit Lohmann, Monica Ionita

2021

Overview

Drought frequency and severity are projected to increase in the future, but the changes are expected to be unevenly distributed across the globe. Based on multi-model simulations under three different future emissions and shared socioeconomic pathways, we show that a significant drought intensification is expected in dry regions, whereby the severity depends on greenhouse gas emissions and development pathways. The drought hotspots are located in the sub-tropical regions where a moderate to extreme summer drought in today’s climate is expected to become a new normal by the end of the 21 st century under the warmest scenario. On average, under the warmest future scenario, the drought occurrence rate is projected to be 100% higher than that of the low emission scenario. Further, for the regions which are currently less affected by long-lasting droughts, such as the European continent, climate models indicate a significant increase in drought occurrence probability under the warmest future scenario.

• Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC,Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group,Nature Portfolio
• Subject: 704/106/242 / 704/106/694/1108 / 704/106/694/2739/2807 / 704/106/694/2786 / 704/172/4081 / Article ; Environmental health ; Climate and Earth system modelling ; Projection and prediction ; Environmental impact ; Hydrology / Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution / Atmospheric Sciences / Climate change / Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts / Climate models / Climatology / Drought / Earth and Environmental Science / Earth Sciences / Emissions / Environmental risk / Environmental sciences / GE1-350 / Global warming / Greenhouse effect / Greenhouse gas emissions / Greenhouse gases / Meteorology. Climatology / Northern Hemisphere / QC851-999 / Tropical environment / Tropical environments