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1. Contrasting Ocean–Atmosphere Dynamics Mediate Flood Hazard across the Mississippi River Basin

   https://doi.org/10.1175/EI-D-22-0015.1  

   Muñoz, Samuel E. ; Hamilton, Brynnydd ; Parazin, B. ( January 2023 , Earth Interactions)

   The Mississippi River basin drains nearly one-half of the contiguous United States, and its rivers serve as economic corridors that facilitate trade and transportation. Flooding remains a perennial hazard on the major tributaries of the Mississippi River basin, and reducing the economic and humanitarian consequences of these events depends on improving their seasonal predictability. Here, we use climate reanalysis and river gauge data to document the evolution of floods on the Missouri and Ohio Rivers—the two largest tributaries of the Mississippi River—and how they are influenced by major modes of climate variability centered in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. We show that the largest floods on these tributaries are preceded by the advection and convergence of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico following distinct atmospheric mechanisms, where Missouri River floods are associated with heavy spring and summer precipitation events delivered by the Great Plains low-level jet, whereas Ohio River floods are associated with frontal precipitation events in winter when the North Atlantic subtropical high is anomalously strong. Further, we demonstrate that the El Niño–Southern Oscillation can serve as a precursor for floods on these rivers by mediating antecedent soil moisture, with Missouri River floods often preceded by a warm eastern tropical Pacific (El Niño) and Ohio River floods often preceded by a cool eastern tropical Pacific (La Niña) in the months leading up peak discharge. We also use recent floods in 2019 and 2021 to demonstrate how linking flood hazard to sea surface temperature anomalies holds potential to improve seasonal predictability of hydrologic extremes on these rivers.

    

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2. Reduced Lower Mississippi River Discharge During the Medieval Era

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL091182  

   Wiman, Charlotte ; Hamilton, Brynnydd ; Dee, Sylvia G. ; Muñoz, Samuel E. ( February 2021 , Geophysical Research Letters)

   Changes in climate are expected to influence discharge of the lower Mississippi River, but projections disagree on whether discharge will increase or decrease over the coming century. Using a reconstructed median peak annual flow for the past 1,500 years based on geomorphic scaling laws, we show that discharge on the lower Mississippi River decreased during the Medieval era (c. 1000–1200 CE)—a period of regionally warm and dry conditions that serves as a partial analog for projected warming. These changes in discharge inferred from channel morphology track discharge simulated in the Community Earth System Model Last Millennium Ensemble. Simulations show that decreased Medieval era discharge is driven primarily by regionally enhanced evapotranspiration. Our findings are consistent with 21st century projections of decreased discharge on the lower Mississippi River under moderate greenhouse forcing scenarios, and demonstrate consistency between reconstructed and simulated discharge over the last millennium.

    

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3. Recent warming of Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia: Implications for one of the world’s most productive inland fisheries

   https://doi.org/10.1111/lre.12317  

   Daly, Kensey ; Ahmad, Shahryar K. ; Bonnema, Matthew ; Beveridge, Claire ; Hossain, Faisal ; Nijssen, Bart ; Holtgrieve, Gordon ( April 2020 , Lakes & Reservoirs: Science, Policy and Management for Sustainable Use)

   Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia is arguably the world's most productive freshwater ecosystems, as well as the dominant source of animal protein for the country. The rapid rise of hydropower schemes, deforestation, land development and climate change impacts in the Mekong River Basin, however, now represent serious concerns in regard to Tonle Sap Lake's ecological health and its role in future food security. To this end, the present study identifies significant recent warming of lake temperature and discusses how each of these anthropogenic perturbations in Tonle Sap's floodplain and the Mekong River Basin may be influencing this trend. The lake's dry season monthly average temperature increased by 0.03°C/year between 1988 and 2018, being largely in synchrony with warming trends of the local air temperature and upstream rivers. The impacts of deforestation and agriculture development in the lake's floodplain also exhibited a high correlation with an increased number of warm days observed in the lake, particularly in its southeast region (agricultureR² = .61; deforestationR² = .39). A total of 79 dams, resulting in 72 km³of volumetric water capacity, were constructed between 2003 and 2018 in the Mekong River Basin. This dam development coincided with a decreasing trend in the number of dry season warm days per year in the lower Mekong River, while Tonle Sap Lake's number of dry season warm days continued to increase during this same period. The present study revealed that Tonle Sap Lake's temperature trends are highly influenced by temperature trends in the local climate, agriculture development and deforestation of the lake's watershed. Although there were no noticeable impacts observed from upstream dam development in the Mekong River Basin, local‐to‐regional agricultural and land management of the lake's watershed appear to be effective strategies for maintaining a stable thermal regime in the lake in order to facilitate maximum ecosystem health.

    

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4. East African Climate During a Major Turnover in Mammal Species between 400 and 500 thousand years ago

   Johnson, T. ; Ramirez, B. ; Salacup, J. ; Castañeda, I.S. ( October 2022 , Abstracts Geological Society of America)

   Roughly 85% of mammalian herbivore species in southern Kenya were replaced by smaller, more adaptable species at some time between 400,000 years ago (400ka) and 500 ka. While this major taxonomic turnover has been attributed to a shift to more a more arid and variable climate and tectonic activity, we wondered if a particularly abrupt shift, a “tipping point,” in climate at some time between 400 and 500 ka was the cause. We analyzed the highest resolution paleoclimate record available in East Africa, Lake Malawi drill core MAL05-1B, for organic geochemical proxies, including branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) and leaf wax deuterium isotopic records to develop the temperature and precipitation history, respectively, between 600 and 200 ka. Results show an abrupt temperature increase of ~6°C occurring in less than 3000 years during Glacial Termination V, which is the Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 12 to MIS 11 transition at ~430 ka. Surprisingly, even more intense warming occurred during Glacial Termination VI around 510 ka. Notably, these deglacial warmings coincide with enriched leaf wax deuterium isotopic values suggesting a shift to more arid conditions in interglacials MIS 13 and 11 than in glacials MIS 14 and 12, respectively. These changes from cold/wet glacials to warm/dry interglacials contrast with the cool/dry pattern of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) in East Africa that transitioned to a warm/wet Holocene. We propose that the major warming and drying during Termination V in the Malawi basin represents a significant abrupt change that impacted much of eastern Africa around 430 ka and was a likely driver of the major faunal turnover noted in the region. 

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5. Drought and Flood Extremes on the Amazon River and in Northeast Brazil, 1790–1900

   https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-23-0146.1  

   Granato-Souza, Daniela ; Stahle, David W. ( October 2023 , Journal of Climate)

   Recent severe droughts, extreme floods, and increasing differences between seasonal high and low flows on the Amazon River may represent a twenty-first-century increase in the amplitude of the hydrologic cycle over the Amazon Basin. These precipitation and streamflow changes may have arisen from natural ocean–atmospheric variability, deforestation within the drainage basin of the Amazon River, or anthropogenic climate change. Tree-ring reconstructions of wet-season precipitation extremes, substantiated with historical accounts of climate and river levels on the Amazon River and in northeast Brazil found in the Brazilian Digital Library, indicate that the recent river-level extremes on the Amazon may have been equaled or possibly exceeded during the preinstrumental nineteenth century. The “Forgotten Drought” of 1865 was the lowest wet-season rainfall total reconstructed with tree-rings in the eastern Amazon from 1790 to 2016 and appears to have been one of the lowest stream levels observed on the Amazon River during the historical era according to first-hand descriptions by Louis Agassiz, his Brazilian colleague João Martins da Silva Coutinho, and others. Heavy rains and flooding are described during most of the tree-ring-reconstructed wet extremes, including the complete inundation of “First Street” in Santarem, Brazil, in 1859 and the overtopping of the Bittencourt Bridge in Manaus, Brazil, in 1892. These extremes in the tree-ring estimates and historical observations indicate that recent high and low flow anomalies on the Amazon River may not have exceeded the natural variability of precipitation and streamflow during the nineteenth century.

   Proxy tree-ring and historical evidence for precipitation extremes during the preinstrumental nineteenth century indicate that recent floods and droughts on the Amazon River may have not yet exceeded the range of natural hydroclimatic variability.

    

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