Drought losses in China might double between the 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C warming

Su, B.; Huang, J.; Fischer, T.; Wang, Y.; Kundzewicz, Zbigniew W.; Zhai, J.; Sun, H.; Wang, A.; Zeng, X.; Wang, G.; Tao, H.; Gemmer, M.; Li, X.; Jiang, T.

doi:10.1073/pnas.1802129115

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Add to Basket

Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released

Journal Article

Drought losses in China might double between the 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C warming

Authors

Su, B.
External Organizations;

Huang, J.
External Organizations;

Fischer, T.
External Organizations;

Wang, Y.
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/zbyszek

Kundzewicz, Zbigniew W.
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

Zhai, J.
External Organizations;

Sun, H.
External Organizations;

Wang, A.
External Organizations;

Zeng, X.
External Organizations;

Wang, G.
External Organizations;

Tao, H.
External Organizations;

Gemmer, M.
External Organizations;

Li, X.
External Organizations;

Jiang, T.
External Organizations;

External Ressource

No external resources are shared

Fulltext (public)

8212oa.pdf
(Publisher version), 4MB

Supplementary Material (public)

There is no public supplementary material available

Citation

Su, B., Huang, J., Fischer, T., Wang, Y., Kundzewicz, Z. W., Zhai, J., Sun, H., Wang, A., Zeng, X., Wang, G., Tao, H., Gemmer, M., Li, X., Jiang, T. (2018): Drought losses in China might double between the 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C warming. - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), 115, 42, 10600-10605.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1802129115

Cite as: https://publications.pik-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_22652

Abstract

We project drought losses in China under global temperature increase of 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C, based on the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), a cluster analysis method, and “intensity-loss rate” function. In contrast to earlier studies, to project the drought losses, we predict the regional gross domestic product under shared socioeconomic pathways instead of using a static socioeconomic scenario. We identify increasing precipitation and evapotranspiration pattern for the 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C global warming above the preindustrial at 2020–2039 and 2040–2059, respectively. With increasing drought intensity and areal coverage across China, drought losses will soar. The estimated loss in a sustainable development pathway at the 1.5 °C warming level increases 10-fold in comparison with the reference period 1986–2005 and nearly threefold relative to the interval 2006–2015. However, limiting the temperature increase to 1.5 °C can reduce the annual drought losses in China by several tens of billions of US dollars, compared with the 2.0 °C warming.