Megadroughts in the Common Era and the Anthropocene

Benjamin I. Cook, Jason E. Smerdon, Edward R. Cook, A. Park Williams, Kevin J. Anchukaitis, Justin S. Mankin, Kathryn Allen, Laia Andreu-Hayles, Toby R. Ault, Soumaya Belmecheri, Sloan Coats, Bethany Coulthard, Boniface Fosu, Pauline Grierson, Daniel Griffin, Dimitris A. Herrera, Monica Ionita, Flavio Lehner, Caroline Leland, Kate MarvelMariano S. Morales, Vimal Mishra, Justine Ngoma, Hung T.T. Nguyen, Alison O’Donnell, Jonathan Palmer, Mukund P. Rao, Milagros Rodriguez-Caton, Richard Seager, David W. Stahle, Samantha Stevenson, Uday K Thapa, Arianna M. Varuolo-Clarke, Erika K. Wise

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

52 Scopus citations

Abstract

Exceptional drought events, known as megadroughts, have occurred on every continent outside Antarctica over the past ~2,000 years, causing major ecological and societal disturbances. In this Review, we discuss shared causes and features of Common Era (Year 1–present) and future megadroughts. Decadal variations in sea surface temperatures are the primary driver of megadroughts, with secondary contributions from radiative forcing and land–atmosphere interactions. Anthropogenic climate change has intensified ongoing megadroughts in south-western North America and across Chile and Argentina. Future megadroughts will be substantially warmer than past events, with this warming driving projected increases in megadrought risk and severity across many regions, including western North America, Central America, Europe and the Mediterranean, extratropical South America, and Australia. However, several knowledge gaps currently undermine confidence in understanding past and future megadroughts. These gaps include a paucity of high-resolution palaeoclimate information over Africa, tropical South America and other regions; incomplete representations of internal variability and land surface processes in climate models; and the undetermined capacity of water-resource management systems to mitigate megadrought impacts. Addressing these deficiencies will be crucial for increasing confidence in projections of future megadrought risk and for resiliency planning.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)741-757
Number of pages17
JournalNature Reviews Earth and Environment
Volume3
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
B.I.C., A.P.W. and K.M. are supported by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) MAPP NA19OAR4310278. B.I.C. and A.P.W. are also supported by NASA’s Modeling, Analysis, and Prediction programme (MAP-16-0081). J.E.S. is supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) AGS-1805490. B.I.C., A.P.W., K.M., J.E.S., J.S.M. and R.S. are supported by Department of Energy (DOE) Grant ESC0022302. J.E.S. and R.S. are supported by NSF AGS 2101214 and R.S. is supported by NSF AGS 2127684. K.A. is supported by Australian Research Council (ARC) Grant FT200100102. L.A.-H., A.P.W. and J.E.S. are supported by NSF OISE-1743738; L.A.-H. and A.P.W. also supported by AGS-1702789 and AGS-1903687. J.E.S., R.S. and J.S.M. are supported by NOAA MAPP NA20OAR4310425. M.I. is supported by the Helmholtz Association through the joint programme ‘Changing Earth — Sustaining our Future’ (PoF IV) of the Alfred-Wegener-Institut and the Helmholtz Climate Initiative REKLIM. F.L. is supported by the US DOE Office of Science, Office of Biological & Environmental Research (BER), Regional and Global Model Analysis (RGMA) component of the Earth and Environmental System Modeling Program under Award Number DE-SC0022070 and NSF IA 1947282. This work was also supported by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), which is a major facility sponsored by the NSF under Cooperative Agreement No. 1852977. M.S.M. is supported by FONDECYT-BM-INC.INV 039-2019. H.T.T.N. is supported by the Lamont-Doherty Postdoctoral Fellowship. M.P.R. and U.K.T. supported by NOAA Climate & Global Change Fellowship #NA18NWS4620043B. M.R. is supported by NASA 80NSSC21K1713. D.G. is supported by NSF-AGS 1903504. K.J.A. is supported by NSF AGS-1501856, BCS-1759629 and AGS-1803995.

Funding Information:
B.I.C., A.P.W. and K.M. are supported by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) MAPP NA19OAR4310278. B.I.C. and A.P.W. are also supported by NASA’s Modeling, Analysis, and Prediction programme (MAP-16-0081). J.E.S. is supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) AGS-1805490. B.I.C., A.P.W., K.M., J.E.S., J.S.M. and R.S. are supported by Department of Energy (DOE) Grant ESC0022302. J.E.S. and R.S. are supported by NSF AGS 2101214 and R.S. is supported by NSF AGS 2127684. K.A. is supported by Australian Research Council (ARC) Grant FT200100102. L.A.-H., A.P.W. and J.E.S. are supported by NSF OISE-1743738; L.A.-H. and A.P.W. also supported by AGS-1702789 and AGS-1903687. J.E.S., R.S. and J.S.M. are supported by NOAA MAPP NA20OAR4310425. M.I. is supported by the Helmholtz Association through the joint programme ‘Changing Earth — Sustaining our Future’ (PoF IV) of the Alfred-Wegener-Institut and the Helmholtz Climate Initiative REKLIM. F.L. is supported by the US DOE Office of Science, Office of Biological & Environmental Research (BER), Regional and Global Model Analysis (RGMA) component of the Earth and Environmental System Modeling Program under Award Number DE-SC0022070 and NSF IA 1947282. This work was also supported by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), which is a major facility sponsored by the NSF under Cooperative Agreement No. 1852977. M.S.M. is supported by FONDECYT-BM-INC.INV 039-2019. H.T.T.N. is supported by the Lamont-Doherty Postdoctoral Fellowship. M.P.R. and U.K.T. supported by NOAA Climate & Global Change Fellowship #NA18NWS4620043B. M.R. is supported by NASA 80NSSC21K1713. D.G. is supported by NSF-AGS 1903504. K.J.A. is supported by NSF AGS-1501856, BCS-1759629 and AGS-1803995.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Megadroughts in the Common Era and the Anthropocene'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this