Global patterns of drought recovery (2024)

Global patterns of drought recovery. / Schwalm, Christopher R.; Anderegg, William R.L.; Michalak, Anna M. et al.
In: Nature, Vol. 548, No. 7666, 09.08.2017, p. 202-205.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Schwalm, CR, Anderegg, WRL, Michalak, AM, Fisher, JB, Biondi, F, Koch, G, Litvak, M, Ogle, K, Shaw, JD, Wolf, A, Huntzinger, DN, Schaefer, K, Cook, R, Wei, Y, Fang, Y, Hayes, D, Huang, M, Jain, A & Tian, H 2017, 'Global patterns of drought recovery', Nature, vol. 548, no. 7666, pp. 202-205. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature23021

@article{8c81917f5d46416597d3a1d861141b72,

title = "Global patterns of drought recovery",

abstract = "Drought, a recurring phenomenon with major impacts on both human and natural systems, is the most widespread climatic extreme that negatively affects the land carbon sink. Although twentieth-century trends in drought regimes are ambiguous, across many regions more frequent and severe droughts are expected in the twenty-first century. Recovery time - how long an ecosystem requires to revert to its pre-drought functional state - is a critical metric of drought impact. Yet the factors influencing drought recovery and its spatiotemporal patterns at the global scale are largely unknown. Here we analyse three independent datasets of gross primary productivity and show that, across diverse ecosystems, drought recovery times are strongly associated with climate and carbon cycle dynamics, with biodiversity and CO 2 fertilization as secondary factors. Our analysis also provides two key insights into the spatiotemporal patterns of drought recovery time: first, that recovery is longest in the tropics and high northern latitudes (both vulnerable areas of Earth's climate system) and second, that drought impacts (assessed using the area of ecosystems actively recovering and time to recovery) have increased over the twentieth century. If droughts become more frequent, as expected, the time between droughts may become shorter than drought recovery time, leading to permanently damaged ecosystems and widespread degradation of the land carbon sink.",

author = "Schwalm, {Christopher R.} and Anderegg, {William R.L.} and Michalak, {Anna M.} and Fisher, {Joshua B.} and Franco Biondi and George Koch and Marcy Litvak and Kiona Ogle and Shaw, {John D.} and Adam Wolf and Huntzinger, {Deborah N.} and Kevin Schaefer and Robert Cook and Yaxing Wei and Yuanyuan Fang and Daniel Hayes and Maoyi Huang and Atul Jain and Hanqin Tian",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.",

year = "2017",

month = aug,

day = "9",

doi = "10.1038/nature23021",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "548",

pages = "202--205",

journal = "Nature",

issn = "0028-0836",

publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",

number = "7666",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Global patterns of drought recovery

AU - Schwalm, Christopher R.

AU - Anderegg, William R.L.

AU - Michalak, Anna M.

AU - Fisher, Joshua B.

AU - Biondi, Franco

AU - Koch, George

AU - Litvak, Marcy

AU - Ogle, Kiona

AU - Shaw, John D.

AU - Wolf, Adam

AU - Huntzinger, Deborah N.

AU - Schaefer, Kevin

AU - Cook, Robert

AU - Wei, Yaxing

AU - Fang, Yuanyuan

AU - Hayes, Daniel

AU - Huang, Maoyi

AU - Jain, Atul

AU - Tian, Hanqin

N1 - Publisher Copyright:© 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.

PY - 2017/8/9

Y1 - 2017/8/9

N2 - Drought, a recurring phenomenon with major impacts on both human and natural systems, is the most widespread climatic extreme that negatively affects the land carbon sink. Although twentieth-century trends in drought regimes are ambiguous, across many regions more frequent and severe droughts are expected in the twenty-first century. Recovery time - how long an ecosystem requires to revert to its pre-drought functional state - is a critical metric of drought impact. Yet the factors influencing drought recovery and its spatiotemporal patterns at the global scale are largely unknown. Here we analyse three independent datasets of gross primary productivity and show that, across diverse ecosystems, drought recovery times are strongly associated with climate and carbon cycle dynamics, with biodiversity and CO 2 fertilization as secondary factors. Our analysis also provides two key insights into the spatiotemporal patterns of drought recovery time: first, that recovery is longest in the tropics and high northern latitudes (both vulnerable areas of Earth's climate system) and second, that drought impacts (assessed using the area of ecosystems actively recovering and time to recovery) have increased over the twentieth century. If droughts become more frequent, as expected, the time between droughts may become shorter than drought recovery time, leading to permanently damaged ecosystems and widespread degradation of the land carbon sink.

AB - Drought, a recurring phenomenon with major impacts on both human and natural systems, is the most widespread climatic extreme that negatively affects the land carbon sink. Although twentieth-century trends in drought regimes are ambiguous, across many regions more frequent and severe droughts are expected in the twenty-first century. Recovery time - how long an ecosystem requires to revert to its pre-drought functional state - is a critical metric of drought impact. Yet the factors influencing drought recovery and its spatiotemporal patterns at the global scale are largely unknown. Here we analyse three independent datasets of gross primary productivity and show that, across diverse ecosystems, drought recovery times are strongly associated with climate and carbon cycle dynamics, with biodiversity and CO 2 fertilization as secondary factors. Our analysis also provides two key insights into the spatiotemporal patterns of drought recovery time: first, that recovery is longest in the tropics and high northern latitudes (both vulnerable areas of Earth's climate system) and second, that drought impacts (assessed using the area of ecosystems actively recovering and time to recovery) have increased over the twentieth century. If droughts become more frequent, as expected, the time between droughts may become shorter than drought recovery time, leading to permanently damaged ecosystems and widespread degradation of the land carbon sink.

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DO - 10.1038/nature23021

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