Assessing Future Drought Conditions over the Iberian Peninsula: The Impact of Using Different Periods to Compute the SPEI
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García Valdecasas Ojeda, Matilde María del Valle; Romero Jiménez, Emilio; Rosa Cánovas, Juan José; Yeste, Patricio; Castro Díez, Yolanda; Esteban Parra, María Jesús; Vicente Serrano, Sergio M.; Gámiz Fortís, Sonia RaquelEditorial
MDPI
Materia
Drought indices Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index Regionalized projections EURO-CORDEX Iberian Peninsula Climate change
Date
2021Referencia bibliográfica
García-Valdecasas Ojeda, M.; Romero-Jiménez, E.; Rosa-Cánovas, J.J.; Yeste, P.; Castro-Díez, Y.; Esteban-Parra, M.J.; Vicente-Serrano, S.M.; Gámiz-Fortis, S.R. Assessing Future Drought Conditions over the Iberian Peninsula: The Impact of Using Different Periods to Compute the SPEI. Atmosphere 2021, 12, 980. https://doi.org/
Sponsorship
FEDER/Junta de Andalucía-Ministry of Economy and Knowledge/Project [B-RNM-336-UGR18]; Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness; European Community Funds (FEDER) [CGL2017-89836-R]; OGS and CINECA under HPC-TRES program award number 2020-02Abstract
Future drought-hazard assessments using standardized indices depend on the period
used to calibrate the probability distributions. This appears to be particularly important in a changing climate with significant trends in drought-related variables. This study explores the effect of
using different approaches to project droughts, with a focus on changes in drought characteristics
(frequency, duration, time spent in drought, and spatial extent), estimated with a calibration period
covering recent past and future conditions (self-calibrated indices), and another one that only applies recent-past records (relative indices). The analysis focused on the Iberian Peninsula (IP), a hotspot region where climate projections indicate significant changes by the end of this century. To do
this, a EURO-CORDEX multi-model ensemble under RCP8.5 was used to calculate the Standardized
Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) at both 3- and 12-month timescales. The results suggest that projections of drought characteristics strongly depend on the period used to calibrate the
SPEI, particularly at a 12-month timescale. Overall, differences were larger for the near future when
relative indices indicated more severe droughts. For the distant future, changes were more similar,
although self-calibrated indices revealed more frequent and longer-lasting droughts and the relative ones a drought worsening associated with extremely prolonged drought events.