Global evaluation of the “dry gets drier, and wet gets wetter” paradigm from a terrestrial water storage change perspective
<p>The “dry gets drier, and wet gets wetter” (DDWW) paradigm has been widely used to summarize the expected trends of the global hydrologic cycle under climate change. However, the paradigm is largely conditioned by choice of different metrics and datasets used and is still comprehensively une...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2022-12-01
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| Series: | Hydrology and Earth System Sciences |
| Online Access: | https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/26/6457/2022/hess-26-6457-2022.pdf |
| Summary: | <p>The “dry gets drier, and wet gets wetter” (DDWW) paradigm has
been widely used to summarize the expected trends of the global hydrologic
cycle under climate change. However, the paradigm is largely conditioned by
choice of different metrics and datasets used and is still comprehensively
unexplored from the perspective of terrestrial water storage anomalies (TWSAs).
Considering the essential role of TWSAs in wetting and drying of the land
system, here we built upon a large ensemble of TWSA datasets, including
satellite-based products, global hydrological models, land surface models,
and global climate models to evaluate the DDWW hypothesis during the
historical (1985–2014) and future (2071–2100) periods under various
scenarios with a 0.05 significance level (for trend estimates). We find that
11.01 %–40.84 % (range by various datasets) of global land confirms the
DDWW paradigm, while 10.21 %–35.43 % of the area shows the opposite
pattern during the historical period. In the future, the DDWW paradigm is
still challenged, with the percentage supporting the pattern lower than
18 % and both the DDWW-validated and DDWW-opposed proportion increasing
along with the intensification of emission scenarios. We show that the
different choices of data sources can reasonably influence the test results
up to a 4-fold difference. Our findings will provide insights and
implications for global wetting and drying trends from the perspective of
TWSA under climate change.</p> |
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| ISSN: | 1027-5606 1607-7938 |