Future risks of compound drought and aridity events
Abstract
Drought and atmospheric aridity pose large risks to ecosystem services and agricultural production. However, they are seldom assessed together as compound events although they often occur simultaneously. Drought stress on terrestrial carbon uptake is characterized by soil moisture (SM) deficits and high vapor pressure deficit (VPD). We used in situ observations and 15 Earth system models to show that compound events with very high VPD and low SM occur more frequently than expected if these events were independent. These compound events are projected to become more frequent and more extreme, and exert increasingly large negative effects on continental productivity. Models project intensified negative effects of high VPD and low SM on vegetation productivity, with the intensification of SM exceeding those of VPD in the Northern Hemisphere. These results highlight the importance of compound extreme events and their threats for the capability of continents to act as a carbon sink.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMNH33D1029G
- Keywords:
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- 4306 Multihazards;
- NATURAL HAZARDSDE: 4313 Extreme events;
- NATURAL HAZARDSDE: 4328 Risk;
- NATURAL HAZARDSDE: 4333 Disaster risk analysis and assessment;
- NATURAL HAZARDS