Articles | Volume 28, issue 6
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-1383-2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-1383-2024
Research article
 | 
27 Mar 2024
Research article |  | 27 Mar 2024

Potential for historically unprecedented Australian droughts from natural variability and climate change

Georgina M. Falster, Nicky M. Wright, Nerilie J. Abram, Anna M. Ukkola, and Benjamin J. Henley

Related authors

Technical note: An improved methodology for calculating the Southern Annular Mode index to aid consistency between climate studies
Laura Velasquez-Jimenez and Nerilie J. Abram
Clim. Past, 20, 1125–1139, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1125-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1125-2024, 2024
Short summary
An annually resolved chronology for the Mount Brown South ice cores, East Antarctica
Tessa R. Vance, Nerilie J. Abram, Alison S. Criscitiello, Camilla K. Crockart, Aylin DeCampo, Vincent Favier, Vasileios Gkinis, Margaret Harlan, Sarah L. Jackson, Helle A. Kjær, Chelsea A. Long, Meredith K. Nation, Christopher T. Plummer, Delia Segato, Andrea Spolaor, and Paul T. Vallelonga
Clim. Past, 20, 969–990, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-969-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-969-2024, 2024
Short summary
On the predictability of turbulent fluxes from land: PLUMBER2 MIP experimental description and preliminary results
Gab Abramowitz, Anna Ukkola, Sanaa Hobeichi, Jon Cranko Page, Mathew Lipson, Martin De Kauwe, Sam Green, Claire Brenner, Jonathan Frame, Grey Nearing, Martyn Clark, Martin Best, Peter Anthoni, Gabriele Arduini, Souhail Boussetta, Silvia Caldararu, Kyeungwoo Cho, Matthias Cuntz, David Fairbairn, Craig Ferguson, Hyungjun Kim, Yeonjoo Kim, Jürgen Knauer, David Lawrence, Xiangzhong Luo, Sergey Malyshev, Tomoko Nitta, Jerome Ogee, Keith Oleson, Catherine Ottlé, Phillipe Peylin, Patricia de Rosnay, Heather Rumbold, Bob Su, Nicolas Vuichard, Anthony Walker, Xiaoni Wang-Faivre, Yunfei Wang, and Yijian Zeng
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-3084,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-3084, 2024
Short summary
Identifying atmospheric processes favouring the formation of bubble-free layers in the Law Dome ice core, East Antarctica
Lingwei Zhang, Tessa R. Vance, Alexander D. Fraser, Lenneke M. Jong, Sarah S. Thompson, Alison S. Criscitiello, and Nerilie J. Abram
The Cryosphere, 17, 5155–5173, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-5155-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-5155-2023, 2023
Short summary
Climatology of the Mount Brown South ice core site in East Antarctica: implications for the interpretation of a water isotope record
Sarah L. Jackson, Tessa R. Vance, Camilla Crockart, Andrew Moy, Christopher Plummer, and Nerilie J. Abram
Clim. Past, 19, 1653–1675, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1653-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1653-2023, 2023
Short summary

Related subject area

Subject: Hydrometeorology | Techniques and Approaches: Modelling approaches
Spatial variability in the seasonal precipitation lapse rates in complex topographical regions – application in France
Valentin Dura, Guillaume Evin, Anne-Catherine Favre, and David Penot
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 2579–2601, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-2579-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-2579-2024, 2024
Short summary
Assessing downscaling methods to simulate hydrologically relevant weather scenarios from a global atmospheric reanalysis: case study of the upper Rhône River (1902–2009)
Caroline Legrand, Benoît Hingray, Bruno Wilhelm, and Martin Ménégoz
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 2139–2166, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-2139-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-2139-2024, 2024
Short summary
Global total precipitable water variations and trends over the period 1958–2021
Nenghan Wan, Xiaomao Lin, Roger A. Pielke Sr., Xubin Zeng, and Amanda M. Nelson
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 2123–2137, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-2123-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-2123-2024, 2024
Short summary
Assessing decadal- to centennial-scale nonstationary variability in meteorological drought trends
Kyungmin Sung, Max C. A. Torbenson, and James H. Stagge
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 2047–2063, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-2047-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-2047-2024, 2024
Short summary
Identification of compound drought and heatwave events on a daily scale and across four seasons
Baoying Shan, Niko E. C. Verhoest, and Bernard De Baets
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 2065–2080, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-2065-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-2065-2024, 2024
Short summary

Cited articles

Abramowitz, G., Herger, N., Gutmann, E., Hammerling, D., Knutti, R., Leduc, M., Lorenz, R., Pincus, R., and Schmidt, G. A.: ESD Reviews: Model dependence in multi-model climate ensembles: weighting, sub-selection and out-of-sample testing, Earth Syst. Dynam., 10, 91–105, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-91-2019, 2019. 
Arias, P. A., Bellouin, N., Coppola, E., Jones, R. G., Krinner, G., Marotzke, J., Naik, V., Palmer, M. D., Plattner, G.-K., Rogelj, J., Rojas, M., Sillmann, J., Storelvmo, T., Thorne, P. W., Trewin, B., Achuta Rao, K., Adhikary, B., Allan, R. P., Armour, K., Bala, G., Barimalala, R., Berger, S., Canadell, J. G., Cassou, C., Cherchi, A., Collins, W., Collins, W. D., Connors, S. L., Corti, S., Cruz, F., Dentener, F. J., Dereczynski, C., Di Luca, A., Diongue Niang, A., Doblas-Reyes, F. J., Dosio, A., Douville, H., Engelbrecht, F., Eyring, V., Fischer, E., Forster, P., Fox-Kemper, B., Fuglestvedt, J. S., Fyfe, J. C., Gillett, N. P., Goldfarb, L., Gorodetskaya, I., Gutierrez, J. M., Hamdi, R., Hawkins, E., Hewitt, H. T., Hope, P., Islam, A. S., Jones, C., Kaufman, D. S., Kopp, R. E., Kosaka, Y., Kossin, J., Krakovska, S., Lee, J.-Y., Li, J., Mauritsen, T., Maycock, T. K., Meinshausen, M., Min, S.-K., Monteiro, P. M. S., Ngo-Duc, T., Otto, F., Pinto, I., Pirani, A., Raghavan, K., Ranasinghe, R., Ruane, A. C., Ruiz, L., Sallée, J.-B., Samset, B. H., Sathyendranath, S., Seneviratne, S. I., Sörensson, A. A., Szopa, S., Takayabu, I., Tréguier, A.-M., van den Hurk, B., Vautard, R., von Schuckmann, K., Zaehle, S., Zhang, X., and Zickfeld, K.: Technical Summary, in: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Masson-Delmotte, V., Zhai, P., Pirani, A., Connors, S. L., Péan, C., Berger, S., Caud, N., Chen, Y., Goldfarb, L., Gomis, M. I., Huang, M., Leitzell, K., Lonnoy, E., Matthews, J. B. R., Maycock, T. K., Waterfield, T., Yelekçi, O., Yu, R., and Zhou, B., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, 33–144., https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896.002, 2021. 
Askarimarnani, S. S., Kiem, A. S., and Twomey, C. R.: Comparing the performance of drought indicators in Australia from 1900 to 2018, Int. J. Climatol., 41, E912–E934, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.6737, 2021. 
Ault, T. R., Cole, J. E., Overpeck, J. T., Pederson, G. T., and Meko, D. M.: Assessing the Risk of Persistent Drought Using Climate Model Simulations and Paleoclimate Data, J. Climate, 27, 7529–7549, 2014. 
Bao, Q., Lin, P., Zhou, T., Liu, Y., Yu, Y., Wu, G., He, B., He, J., Li, L., Li, J., Li, Y., Liu, H., Qiao, F., Song, Z., Wang, B., Wang, J., Wang, P., Wang, X., Wang, Z., Wu, B., Wu, T., Xu, Y., Yu, H., Zhao, W., Zheng, W., and Zhou, L.: The Flexible Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land system model, Spectral Version 2: FGOALS-s2, Adv. Atmos. Sci., 30, 561–576, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-012-2113-9, 2013. 
Download
Short summary
Multi-year droughts have severe environmental and economic impacts, but the instrumental record is too short to characterise multi-year drought variability. We assessed the nature of Australian multi-year droughts using simulations of the past millennium from 11 climate models. We show that multi-decadal megadroughts are a natural feature of the Australian hydroclimate. Human-caused climate change is also driving a tendency towards longer droughts in eastern and southwestern Australia.