Work

The Threat of Multi‐Year Drought in Western Amazonia

Year: 2018

Type: article

Abstract: Recent “once‐in‐a‐century” Amazonian droughts highlight the impacts of drought and climate change on this region's vegetation, carbon storage, water cycling, biodiversity, land use, and economy. The latest climate model simulations suggest this region will experience worsening future drought. However, the instrumental record is too short to quantify the range of background drought variability, or to evaluate extended drought risk in climate models. To overcome these limitations, we generated a new, highly resolved lake record of hydroclimatic variability within the western Amazon Basin. We find that Amazonia has regularly experienced multi‐year droughts over the last millennium. Our results indicate that current climate model simulations likely underestimate the background risk of multi‐year Amazonian drought. These findings illustrate that the future sustainability of the Amazonian forest and its many services may require management strategies that consider the likelihood of multi‐year droughts superimposed on a continued warming trend.

Source: Water Resources Research

DOI: 10.1029/2017wr021788

Authors: L. A. Parsons, S. LeRoy, J. T. Overpeck, M. Bush, G.M. Cárdenes‐Sandí, S. Saleska

Institutions: University of Arizona, University of Michigan, Florida Institute of Technology, Universidad de Costa Rica

Language: English

Topic: Hydrology and Drought Analysis

Subfield: Global and Planetary Change

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Climate action, Life on land

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,000