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Assessment of CFSR, ERA-Interim, JRA-55, MERRA-2, NCEP-2 reanalysis data for drought analysis over China

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Abstract

Five reanalysis datasets—National Centers for Environmental Prediction reanalysis II (NCEP-2), NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR), European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Interim Reanalysis (ERA-Interim), Japanese 55-year Reanalysis Project (JRA-55), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Modern Era Reanalysis for Research and Applications Version-2 (MERRA-2)—are selected to estimate meteorological droughts of China using three drought indices—the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). Drought indices, drought areas and drought severity estimated for China from these reanalysis datasets are assessed against corresponding results obtained from observed climate dataset of China using Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE), correlation coefficient, and the analysis of time series. Further, temperature, precipitation and potential evapotranspiration data of the five reanalysis datasets are also compared against the observed dataset. Drought indices and drought areas estimated from reanalysis datasets are generally more representative of historical droughts that had occurred in eastern China than in western China. However, the performance of these five reanalysis datasets in representing the drought severity is unsatisfactory in both western China and eastern China. SPEI is generally more representative than PDSI and SPI partly because temperature and potential evapotranspiration data of reanalysis datasets are generally better than precipitation data. PDSI is also based on a supply-and-demand model of soil moisture but estimating the demand of soil moisture is complicated. Therefore, SPEI is preferred over PDSI and SPI as the drought index to characterize the meteorological droughts of China. Climate data and meteorological drought characteristics of eastern China are best represented by JRA-55, while that of western China are best represented by MERRA-2. From 1980 to 2014, statistically significant increasing trends in annual drought areas and drought severity are detected from JRA-55 and observed climate datasets in eastern China, but they are only detected from observed dataset in western China.

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Acknowledgements

The first author was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (nos. 2016YFC0402203 and 2107YFC0405302), National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 51509009 and 51709204), the China Scholarship Council (CSC) and partly by the University of Alberta, Canada.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Water Resources Department, Changjiang River Scientific Research Institute, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China

    Shu Chen

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

    Thian Yew Gan

  3. Department of Water Resources and Environment, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Xuezhi Tan

  4. State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China

    Shu Chen & Dongguo Shao

  5. Hubei Provincial Key Laboratory on Waterlogged Disaster and Wetland Agriculture, Yangtze University, Jingzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Jianqiang Zhu

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  1. Shu Chen
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Chen, S., Gan, T.Y., Tan, X. et al. Assessment of CFSR, ERA-Interim, JRA-55, MERRA-2, NCEP-2 reanalysis data for drought analysis over China. Clim Dyn 53, 737–757 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-04611-1

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