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Short-term concurrent drought and heatwave frequency with 1.5 and 2.0 °C global warming in humid subtropical basins: a case study in the Gan River Basin, China

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Abstract

Short-term concurrent droughts and heatwaves accompanied by high temperatures and low soil moisture (or low precipitation) may significantly impact ecosystems, societies, and economies although the individual events involved may not themselves represent severe extremes. There is little known about the potential frequency of short-term concurrent droughts and heatwaves in the future. Here, we use the Gan River Basin as a case study area to assess the effects of different warming levels on drought and heatwave concurrences based on the coupled model intercomparison project phase 5 and variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model. The results show that the VIC model has high reliability in the simulation of soil moisture and evapotranspiration compared with other well-recognized datasets in the Gan River Basin. The warming level over the Gan River Basin is close to the global warming level. Under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, the multi-model ensemble medians of concurrent events increased by 0.08–0.4 pentads/decade from 2006 to 2099. The uncertainty of concurrent events encompasses a wider range as global temperature increases. Compared to the reference period (1961–2005), drought and heatwave concurrences have increased by more than 50% in the most parts of the basin under 1.5 or 2.0 °C of global warming; there is a 20% frequency difference of 0.5 °C from 1.5 to 2.0 °C. The substantial pentad increases (at least greater than 50%) existed in historical low-pentad-value areas in a 1.5 or 2.0 °C world, especially pronounced for a 2.0 °C world. The greatest increase in concurrent event pentads came from the 25th percentile values in 1.5 or 2.0 °C scenarios. Climatological median pentads of concurrent droughts and heatwaves appear likely to be 9.6–17.6% more frequent in a 2.0 °C world than a 1.5 °C world with respect to the reference period.

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Acknowledgements

This study was jointly supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFA0603804), National Natural Science Foundation (41771069), Jiangsu Natural Science Funds for Distinguished Young Scholar “BK20140047”, the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD), and the Research and Innovation Project for College Graduates of Jiangsu Province (no. 1344051501007). Climate scenarios used were from the NEX-GDDP dataset prepared by the Climate Analytics Group and NASA Ames Research Center using the NASA Earth Exchange, and distributed by the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Urban and Environmental Science, Huaiyin Normal University, Huai’an, 223300, China

    Yuqing Zhang, Guangxiong Mao & Zhengwei Ye

  2. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and Institute of Atmospheric Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Qinglong You

  3. Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster, Ministry of Education (KLME)/Joint International Research Laboratory of Climate and Environment Change (ILCEC), Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST), Nanjing, 210044, China

    Yuqing Zhang & Qinglong You

  4. School of Geography and Remote Sensing, NUIST, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Changchun Chen

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  1. Yuqing Zhang
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Correspondence to Qinglong You.

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Zhang, Y., You, Q., Mao, G. et al. Short-term concurrent drought and heatwave frequency with 1.5 and 2.0 °C global warming in humid subtropical basins: a case study in the Gan River Basin, China. Clim Dyn 52, 4621–4641 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4398-6

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