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Comment
. 2020 Jun 2;117(22):11856-11858.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.2006323117. Epub 2020 May 19.

Climate change and the aridification of North America

Jonathan T Overpeck  1   2 , Bradley Udall  2   3
Affiliations
Comment

Climate change and the aridification of North America

Jonathan T Overpeck et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Climate change is causing the Southwest to aridify. (Left) Since the 1930s, increasing temperatures have caused the percentage of precipitation going to evapotranspiration (ET) to increase at the expense of precipitation going to Colorado River flow, resulting in an unprecedented and still ongoing megadrought (shading) starting in 1999 (8). (Right) Higher temperatures have already reduced Colorado River flow by 13%, and projected additional warming, assuming continued high emissions of greenhouse gases, will increase ET while reducing river flow even more through the 21st century. Data on Left are 20-y running means from ref. , and data on Right are calculated from Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 8.5 multimodel Coupled Model Intercomparison Project–Phase 5 (CMIP5) ensemble temperature increases projected for the Upper Colorado River Basin combined with temperature sensitivity of −9.3%/°C estimated by ref. , assuming no change in precipitation.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

  • Increased drought severity tracks warming in the United States' largest river basin.
    Martin JT, Pederson GT, Woodhouse CA, Cook ER, McCabe GJ, Anchukaitis KJ, Wise EK, Erger PJ, Dolan L, McGuire M, Gangopadhyay S, Chase KJ, Littell JS, Gray ST, St George S, Friedman JM, Sauchyn DJ, St-Jacques JM, King J. Martin JT, et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 May 26;117(21):11328-11336. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1916208117. Epub 2020 May 11. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020. PMID: 32393620 Free PMC article.

References

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    1. Vano J. A., et al. , Understanding uncertainties in future Colorado River streamflow. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 95, 59–78 (2014).
    1. Udall B., Overpeck J., The twenty-first century Colorado River hot drought and implications for the future. Water Resour. Res. 53, 2404–2418 (2017).
    1. Lehner F., Wahl E. R., Wood A. W., Blatchford D. B., Llewellyn D., Assessing recent declines in Upper Rio Grande runoff efficiency from a paleoclimate perspective. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 4124–4133 (2017).
    1. Milly P. C. D., Dunne K. A., Colorado River flow dwindles as warming-driven loss of reflective snow energizes evaporation. Science 367, 1252–1255 (2020). - PubMed

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