Articles | Volume 24, issue 6
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-2921-2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-2921-2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comparing Palmer Drought Severity Index drought assessments using the traditional offline approach with direct climate model outputs
State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Department of
Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Shulei Zhang
State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Process and Resource Ecology,
School of Natural Resources, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal
University, Beijing, China
Michael L. Roderick
Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University,
Canberra, ACT, Australia
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, Canberra, ACT, Australia
Tim R. McVicar
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, Canberra, ACT, Australia
CSIRO Land and Water, Canberra, ACT, Australia
Dawen Yang
State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Department of
Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Wenbin Liu
Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Processes,
Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Xiaoyan Li
State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Process and Resource Ecology,
School of Natural Resources, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal
University, Beijing, China
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Revised manuscript not accepted
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Short summary
Many previous studies using offline drought indices report that future warming will increase worldwide drought. However, this contradicts observations/projections of vegetation greening and increased runoff. We resolved this paradox by re-calculating the same drought indices using direct climate model outputs and find no increase in future drought as the climate warms. We also find that accounting for the impact of CO2 on plant transpiration avoids the previous overestimation of drought.
Many previous studies using offline drought indices report that future warming will increase...