Australia's Tinderbox Drought: An extreme natural event likely worsened by human-caused climate change.
Sci Adv
; 10(10): eadj3460, 2024 Mar 08.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38446893
ABSTRACT
We examine the characteristics and causes of southeast Australia's Tinderbox Drought (2017 to 2019) that preceded the Black Summer fire disaster. The Tinderbox Drought was characterized by cool season rainfall deficits of around -50% in three consecutive years, which was exceptionally unlikely in the context of natural variability alone. The precipitation deficits were initiated and sustained by an anomalous atmospheric circulation that diverted oceanic moisture away from the region, despite traditional indicators of drought risk in southeast Australia generally being in neutral states. Moisture deficits were intensified by unusually high temperatures, high vapor pressure deficits, and sustained reductions in terrestrial water availability. Anthropogenic forcing intensified the rainfall deficits of the Tinderbox Drought by around 18% with an interquartile range of 34.9 to -13.3% highlighting the considerable uncertainty in attributing droughts of this kind to human activity. Skillful predictability of this drought was possible by incorporating multiple remote and local predictors through machine learning, providing prospects for improving forecasting of droughts.
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Cambio Climático
/
Sequías
Límite:
Humans
País/Región como asunto:
Oceania
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Sci Adv
Año:
2024
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Australia
Pais de publicación:
Estados Unidos