IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v12y2021i1d10.1038_s41467-021-22314-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evidence of anthropogenic impacts on global drought frequency, duration, and intensity

Author

Listed:
  • Felicia Chiang

    (University of California)

  • Omid Mazdiyasni

    (University of California)

  • Amir AghaKouchak

    (University of California
    University of California)

Abstract

Most climate change detection and attribution studies have focused on mean or extreme temperature or precipitation, neglecting to explore long-term changes in drought characteristics. Here we provide evidence that anthropogenic forcing has impacted interrelated meteorological drought characteristics. Using SPI and SPEI indices generated from an ensemble of 9 CMIP6 models (using 3 realizations per model), we show that the presence of anthropogenic forcing has increased the drought frequency, maximum drought duration, and maximum drought intensity experienced in large parts of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Using individual greenhouse gas and anthropogenic aerosol forcings, we also highlight that regional balances between the two major forcings have contributed to the drying patterns detected in our results. Overall, we provide a comprehensive characterization of the influence of anthropogenic forcing on drought characteristics, providing important perspectives on the role of forcings in driving changes in drought events.

Suggested Citation

  • Felicia Chiang & Omid Mazdiyasni & Amir AghaKouchak, 2021. "Evidence of anthropogenic impacts on global drought frequency, duration, and intensity," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-22314-w
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22314-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22314-w
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-021-22314-w?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Federica Alfani & Vasco Molini & Giacomo Pallante & Alessandro PalmaGran, 2024. "Job displacement and reallocation failure. Evidence from climate shocks in Morocco," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 51(1), pages 1-31.
    2. Yu Liu & Huiming Song & Zhisheng An & Qiang Li & Steven W. Leavitt & Ulf Büntgen & Qiufang Cai & Ruoshi Liu & Congxi Fang & Changfeng Sun & Kerstin Treydte & Meng Ren & Lidong Mo & Yi Song & Wenju Cai, 2025. "Recent centennial drought on the Tibetan Plateau is outstanding within the past 3500 years," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-9, December.
    3. Lin, Faqin & Li, Xuecao & Jia, Ningyuan & Feng, Fan & Huang, Hai & Huang, Jianxi & Fan, Shenggen & Ciais, Philippe & Song, Xiao Peng, 2023. "The impact of Russia-Ukraine conflict on global food security," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 117700, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Donghui Xu & Gautam Bisht & Zeli Tan & Eva Sinha & Alan V. Vittorio & Tian Zhou & Valeriy Y. Ivanov & L. Ruby Leung, 2024. "Climate change will reduce North American inland wetland areas and disrupt their seasonal regimes," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-14, December.
    5. Hou, Miaolei & Li, Yi & Biswas, Asim & Chen, Xinguo & Xie, Lulu & Liu, Deli & Li, Linchao & Feng, Hao & Wu, Shufang & Satoh, Yusuke & Pulatov, Alim & Siddique, Kadambot H.M., 2024. "Concurrent drought threatens wheat and maize production and will widen crop yield gaps in the future," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    6. Renata Kuśmierek-Tomaszewska & Jacek Żarski, 2021. "Assessment of Meteorological and Agricultural Drought Occurrence in Central Poland in 1961–2020 as an Element of the Climatic Risk to Crop Production," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-17, September.
    7. Zaheer Allam & Ayyoob Sharifi & Damien Giurco & Samantha A. Sharpe, 2021. "On the Theoretical Conceptualisations, Knowledge Structures and Trends of Green New Deals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-25, November.
    8. Aili, Ablimit & Long, Wenjun & Cao, Zhiwei & Wen, Yonggang, 2024. "Radiative free cooling for energy and water saving in data centers," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 359(C).
    9. Pin Wang & Ernest Asare & Virginia E. Pitzer & Robert Dubrow & Kai Chen, 2022. "Associations between long-term drought and diarrhea among children under five in low- and middle-income countries," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    10. Alfani,Federica & Pallante,Giacomo & Palma,Alessandro & Talhaoui,Abdelkader, 2024. "When the Rain Stops Falling : Effects of Droughts on the Tunisian Labor Market," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10766, The World Bank.
    11. Kheyruri, Yusef & Sharafati, Ahmad & Neshat, Aminreza, 2023. "The socioeconomic impact of severe droughts on agricultural lands over different provinces of Iran," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 289(C).
    12. Flexor, Georges, 2024. "Food challenges, technological changes and food geopolitics," Revista de Economia e Sociologia Rural (RESR), Sociedade Brasileira de Economia e Sociologia Rural, vol. 62(3), January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-22314-w. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.