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Spatiotemporal drought variability in northwestern Africa over the last nine centuries

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Abstract

Changes in precipitation patterns and the frequency and duration of drought are likely to be the feature of anthropogenic climate change that will have the most direct and most immediate consequences for human populations. The latest generation of state-of-the-art climate models project future widespread drying in the subtropics. Here, we reconstruct spatially-complete gridded Palmer drought severity index values back to A.D. 1179 over Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. The reconstructions provide long-term context for northwest African hydroclimatology, revealing large-scale regional droughts prior to the sixteenth century, as well as more heterogeneous patterns in sixteenth, eighteenth, and twentieth century. Over the most recent decades a shift toward dry conditions over the region is observed, which is consistent with general circulation model projections of greenhouse gas forced enhanced regional subtropical drought.

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Acknowledgments

In Morocco we thank the Ministry of Agriculture, the Department of Forestry, and the National School of Forest Engineering, the Director (Driss Misbah) and the staff of Direction of the Rif High Commissariat of Water, Forestry and Combating Desertification, the Director (Abdelaziz Houseini) and the staff of Direction of the Oriental High Commissariat for Water, Forestry and Combating Desertification, the Director (Mustapha Khalladi) and the staff of Direction of Moyen Atlas of High Commissariat of Water, Forestry and Desertification Combating, the Chief (Mohamed Benziane) and staff of the National Center of Forestry Research, and the Director and staff of the National School of Forest Engineering for making this study possible. We wish to thank our colleagues from Algeria, especially Abdelmalek Mohamed Azzedine Idder (Ecosystem Laboratory, University of Ouargla), Belkitir Dadamoussa (former Director, Ecosystem Laboratory, University of Ouargla), Titah (General Director of Forests), Mohamed Seghir Mellouhi (former General Director of Forests), Hocine Medjedoub (former Director of Forest, Betna), Abdallatif Guasmi (Director of Forest, Batna), Saidi Belkacem (Directory of Forest in Khenchela), Haddad Moussa (National Park of Tikdjda, Bouira), Mohamed Tizioui, Said Abderahmani (National Park of Belezma), Athmane Briki (Betna Forest Department), Ali Loukkas (National Park of Theniet el had), Chabane Cheriet (Director of Forest in Tiziouzou), Tidjani Mohamed El-khamis (former President of the University of Ouargla), and Ahmed Boutarfaia (President of the University of Ouargla). We wish to thank our colleagues from Tunisia, including Toumi Lamjed (Directeur général de l’ISPT (Institut Sylvo-Pastoral de Tabarka), Mougou Abdelaziz Président de l’IRESA (Institution de la Recherche et l’Enseignement Supérieur Agricole), Rejeb Néjib Directeur général de l’INRGREF (Institut national de recherche en génie rural, eaux et for\(\hat{\hbox{e}}\)ts), Fekih Salem Ahmed Ridha Directeur génŕal des for\(\hat{\hbox{e}}\) ts, and the forest technicians of Siliana, Kef, Kasserine, Ain Draham, and Jendouba for their great help and support in making this study possible. We thank Rachid Ilmen, Mohamed El Youssfi, and Rachid Azzam, Salaheddine Saadine, and Said Slimani for their valuable field assistance. We thank Christopher Baisan, Gregg Garfin, Jeffrey Dean, Paul Sheppard, and Martin Munro for their advice and suggestions. We also thank Jeffrey Balmat, Nesat Erkan, Jim Burns, Jeremy Goral, Julie Wong, and Salah Eddine Sadine for their valuable assistance in both the field and laboratory. We acknowledge the modeling groups, the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) and the WCRP’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling (WGCM), for their roles in making available the WCRP CMIP3 multi-model dataset. Support of that dataset is provided by the Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy. This is LDEO Contribution 7342 (KJA). Funding was provided by the US National Science Foundation, Earth System History (ESH0317288).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Tree Ring Research, The University of Arizona, 105 W. Stadium, Tucson, AZ, 85721-0058, USA

    Ramzi Touchan & David M. Meko

  2. Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, 61 Route 9W, Palisades, NY, 10964, USA

    Kevin J. Anchukaitis

  3. National School of Forest Engineering, Sale, Morocco

    Mohamed Sabir

  4. Department of Agronomy, University of Ourgla, 30100, Ouargla, Algeria

    Said Attalah

  5. Institute of Sylvo-pastoral of Tabarka, 8110, Tabarka, Tunisia

    Ali Aloui

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  1. Ramzi Touchan
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Correspondence to Ramzi Touchan.

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Touchan, R., Anchukaitis, K.J., Meko, D.M. et al. Spatiotemporal drought variability in northwestern Africa over the last nine centuries. Clim Dyn 37, 237–252 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-010-0804-4

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