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Changes in aridity in response to the global warming hiatus

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Abstract

The global warming slowdown or warming hiatus, began around the year 2000 and has persisted for nearly 15 years. Most studies have focused on the interpretation of the hiatus in temperature. In this study, changes in a global aridity index (AI) were analyzed by using a newly developed dynamical adjustment method that can successfully identify and separate dynamically induced and radiatively forced aridity changes in the raw data. The AI and Palmer Drought Severity Index produced a wetting zone over the mid-to-high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere in recent decades. The dynamical adjustment analysis suggested that this wetting zone occurred in response to the global warming hiatus. The dynamically induced AI (DAI) played a major role in the AI changes during the hiatus period, and its relationships with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) also indicated that different phases of the NAO, PDO, and AMO contributed to different performances of the DAI over the Northern Hemisphere. Although the aridity wetting over the mid-to-high latitudes may relieve long-term drying in certain regions, the hiatus is temporary, and so is the relief. Accelerated global warming will return when the NAO, PDO, and AMO revert to their opposite phases in the future, and the wetting zone is likely to disappear.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Semi-Arid Climate Change of the Ministry of Education, College of Atmospheric Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Xiaodan Guan, Jianping Huang & Ruixia Guo

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  1. Xiaodan Guan
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  2. Jianping Huang
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  3. Ruixia Guo
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jianping Huang.

Additional information

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41575006, 41521004, and 91637312) and China 111 Project (B13045).

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Guan, X., Huang, J. & Guo, R. Changes in aridity in response to the global warming hiatus. J Meteorol Res 31, 117–125 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13351-017-6038-1

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