Ocean and land forcing of the record-breaking Dust Bowl heatwaves across central United States

Tim Cowan (), Gabriele C. Hegerl, Andrew Schurer, Simon F. B. Tett, Robert Vautard, Pascal Yiou, Aglaé Jézéquel, Friederike E. L. Otto, Luke J. Harrington and Benjamin Ng
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Tim Cowan: University of Southern Queensland
Gabriele C. Hegerl: School of GeoSciences, The Kings Building, University of Edinburgh
Andrew Schurer: School of GeoSciences, The Kings Building, University of Edinburgh
Simon F. B. Tett: School of GeoSciences, The Kings Building, University of Edinburgh
Robert Vautard: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, UMR 8212 CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, IPSL & Université Paris-Saclay
Pascal Yiou: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, UMR 8212 CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, IPSL & Université Paris-Saclay
Aglaé Jézéquel: LMD/IPSL, Ecole Normale Superieure, PSL research University
Friederike E. L. Otto: Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford
Luke J. Harrington: Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford
Benjamin Ng: CSIRO Climate Science Centre and Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract The severe drought of the 1930s Dust Bowl decade coincided with record-breaking summer heatwaves that contributed to the socio-economic and ecological disaster over North America’s Great Plains. It remains unresolved to what extent these exceptional heatwaves, hotter than in historically forced coupled climate model simulations, were forced by sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and exacerbated through human-induced deterioration of land cover. Here we show, using an atmospheric-only model, that anomalously warm North Atlantic SSTs enhance heatwave activity through an association with drier spring conditions resulting from weaker moisture transport. Model devegetation simulations, that represent the wide-spread exposure of bare soil in the 1930s, suggest human activity fueled stronger and more frequent heatwaves through greater evaporative drying in the warmer months. This study highlights the potential for the amplification of naturally occurring extreme events like droughts by vegetation feedbacks to create more extreme heatwaves in a warmer world.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16676-w

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