Extreme drought events diagnosed along the Yellow River and the adjacent area

Yongxiang Zhang (), Hongli Wang, Xuemei Shao, Jinbao Li and Guoyu Ren
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Yongxiang Zhang: China Meteorological Administration
Hongli Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xuemei Shao: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Jinbao Li: The University of Hong Kong
Guoyu Ren: China Meteorological Administration

Climatic Change, 2022, vol. 173, issue 3, No 6, 16 pages

Abstract: Abstract Drought is a major natural disaster that has long-lasting effects on economic and social activities in northern China and has regional distinctions in duration, severity, and spatial extent. In this study, tree-ring chronologies and historical archives in the Yellow River Basin and its surrounding areas are collected to investigate the extreme drought history and dynamic process of the two extreme drought events for the past ~ 200 years. Instead of reconstructing climate indicators, the tree index is directly employed here to partly overcome the high-frequency information loss during tree-ring-based reconstruction. The results show that identified drought history is improved significantly relative to the single indicator reconstruction, and drought events are highly consistent with historical recorded ones. Two prominent drought events in modern Chinese history are analyzed, namely the Ding-Wu Great Famine (1876–1879) and the extreme drought in northern China during the late-1920s. Unexpectedly, the most prestigious Ding-Wu Great Famine is lower than the extreme drought in the late-1920s in terms of drought duration, spatial extent, and intensity. Our research further reveals that the drought events recorded in the historical records could be very different from actual events due to the influence of political and other factors. The analysis of spatial dynamics indicates that the potential mechanisms of the two drought events are also different. This is confirmed by research based on reanalysis data that the Ding-Wu Great Famine was caused by a typical strong ENSO event, while the mechanism of the extreme drought in the late-1920s was more complicated.

Keywords: Tree ring; Historical documents; Extreme drought; Identification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1007/s10584-022-03416-w

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