Extraordinary heat during the 1930s US Dust Bowl and associated large-scale conditions

Journal Article · Wed Apr 08 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Climate Dynamics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-015-2590-5· OSTI ID:1565415

Donat, Markus G.; King, Andrew D.; Overpeck, Jonathan T.; Alexander, Lisa V.; Durre, Imke; Karoly, David J.

Unusually hot summer conditions occurred during the 1930s over the central United States and undoubtedly contributed to the severity of the Dust Bowl drought. We investigate local and large-scale conditions in association with the extraordinary heat and drought events, making use of novel datasets of observed climate extremes and climate reanalysis covering the past century. We show that the unprecedented summer heat during the Dust Bowl years was likely exacerbated by land-surface feedbacks associated with springtime precipitation deficits. The reanalysis results indicate that these deficits were associated with the coincidence of anomalously warm North Atlantic and Northeast Pacific surface waters and a shift in atmospheric pressure patterns leading to reduced flow of moist air into the central US. Thus, the combination of springtime ocean temperatures and atmospheric flow anomalies, leading to reduced precipitation, also holds potential for enhanced predictability of summer heat events. The results suggest that hot drought, more severe than experienced during the most recent 2011 and 2012 heat waves, is to be expected when ocean temperature anomalies like those observed in the 1930s occur in a world that has seen significant mean warming.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• OSTI ID: 1565415
• Journal Information: Climate Dynamics, Vol. 46, Issue 1-2; ISSN 0930-7575
• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences