Increased drought severity tracks warming in the United States' largest river basin.

ABSTRACT: Across the Upper Missouri River Basin, the recent drought of 2000 to 2010, known as the "turn-of-the-century drought," was likely more severe than any in the instrumental record including the Dust Bowl drought. However, until now, adequate proxy records needed to better understand this event with regard to long-term variability have been lacking. Here we examine 1,200 y of streamflow from a network of 17 new tree-ring-based reconstructions for gages across the upper Missouri basin and an independent reconstruction of warm-season regional temperature in order to place the recent drought in a long-term climate context. We find that temperature has increasingly influenced the severity of drought events by decreasing runoff efficiency in the basin since the late 20th century (1980s) onward. Th

SUBMITTER: Martin JT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7260967 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature