California's Drought of the Future: A Midcentury Recreation of the Exceptional Conditions of 2012–2017
Abstract
The California drought of 2012–2016 was a record-breaking event with extensive social, political, and economic repercussions. The impacts were extensive and exposed the difficulty in preparing for the effects of prolonged dry conditions. Although the lessons from this drought drove important changes to state law and policy, there is little doubt that climate change will only exacerbate future droughts. To discern the character of future drought, this paper examines this recent drought period retrospectively and prospectively, that is, as it occurred historically and if similar dynamical conditions to the historical period were to arise 30 years later (2042–2046) subject to the effects of climate change. Simulations were conducted using the Weather Research and Forecasting model using the pseudo global warming method. The simulated historical and future droughts are contrasted in terms of temperature, precipitation, snowpack, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and forest health. Overall, the midcentury drought is observed to be significantly worse, with many more extreme heat days, record-low snowpack, increased soil drying, and record-high forest mortality. With these findings in mind, the data sets developed in this study provide a means to structure future drought planning around a drought scenario that is realistic and modeled after a memorable historical analog.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[2];
[2];
[3];
[2];
[2]
- Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- U.S. Geological Survey, Carson City, NV (United States)
- Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States); Public Policy Inst. of California, San Francisco, CA (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Scientific User Facilities Division; Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth and Environmental Systems Science Division; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Public Policy Inst.; U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. National Inst. of Food and Agriculture
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1515777
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231; SC0016605; CA‐D‐LAW‐2203‐H; 83586701
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Earth's Future
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 6; Journal Issue: 11; Journal ID: ISSN 2328-4277
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; drought; climate change; climate modeling; pseudo global warming
Citation Formats
Ullrich, P. A., Xu, Z., Rhoades, A. M., Dettinger, M. D., Mount, J. F., Jones, A. D., and Vahmani, P. California's Drought of the Future: A Midcentury Recreation of the Exceptional Conditions of 2012–2017. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1029/2018EF001007.
Ullrich, P. A., Xu, Z., Rhoades, A. M., Dettinger, M. D., Mount, J. F., Jones, A. D., & Vahmani, P. California's Drought of the Future: A Midcentury Recreation of the Exceptional Conditions of 2012–2017. United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EF001007
Ullrich, P. A., Xu, Z., Rhoades, A. M., Dettinger, M. D., Mount, J. F., Jones, A. D., and Vahmani, P. Fri .
"California's Drought of the Future: A Midcentury Recreation of the Exceptional Conditions of 2012–2017". United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EF001007. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1515777.
@article{osti_1515777,
title = {California's Drought of the Future: A Midcentury Recreation of the Exceptional Conditions of 2012–2017},
author = {Ullrich, P. A. and Xu, Z. and Rhoades, A. M. and Dettinger, M. D. and Mount, J. F. and Jones, A. D. and Vahmani, P.},
abstractNote = {The California drought of 2012–2016 was a record-breaking event with extensive social, political, and economic repercussions. The impacts were extensive and exposed the difficulty in preparing for the effects of prolonged dry conditions. Although the lessons from this drought drove important changes to state law and policy, there is little doubt that climate change will only exacerbate future droughts. To discern the character of future drought, this paper examines this recent drought period retrospectively and prospectively, that is, as it occurred historically and if similar dynamical conditions to the historical period were to arise 30 years later (2042–2046) subject to the effects of climate change. Simulations were conducted using the Weather Research and Forecasting model using the pseudo global warming method. The simulated historical and future droughts are contrasted in terms of temperature, precipitation, snowpack, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and forest health. Overall, the midcentury drought is observed to be significantly worse, with many more extreme heat days, record-low snowpack, increased soil drying, and record-high forest mortality. With these findings in mind, the data sets developed in this study provide a means to structure future drought planning around a drought scenario that is realistic and modeled after a memorable historical analog.},
doi = {10.1029/2018EF001007},
journal = {Earth's Future},
number = 11,
volume = 6,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Sep 28 00:00:00 EDT 2018},
month = {Fri Sep 28 00:00:00 EDT 2018}
}
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Cited by: 49 works
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Figures / Tables:
Figure 1: California water year climatological temperature anomaly, precipitation anomaly, and Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) over the period WY1950 to WY2017. Temperature and precipitation anomalies are computed against 1981–2000 annual mean of 14.6 °C and 603 mm, respectively. The drought period considered in this paper is highlighted. Data frommore »
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