Accumulating evidence on the impact of climate change on droughts, highlights the necessity for developing effective adaptation and mitigation strategies. Changes in future drought risk and severity in Australia are quantified by analyzing nine Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 climate models. Historic conditions (1981–2014) and projections for mid-century (2015–2050) and end-century (2051–2100) from four shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5) are examined. Drought events are identified using both the standardized precipitation index and the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index. The spatial-temporal evolution of droughts is addressed by quantifying the areal extent of regions under moderate, severe and extreme drought from historic to end-century periods. Drought characteristics derived from the models are used to develop severity–duration–frequency curves using an extreme value analysis method based on ordinary events. Under SSP5-8.5, a tenfold increase in the area subject to extreme droughts is projected by the end of the century, while a twofold increase is projected under SSP1-2.6. Increase in extreme droughts frequency is found to be more pronounced in the southern and western regions of Australia. For example, frequency analysis of 12 month duration droughts for the state of South Australia indicates that, under SSP5-8.5, drought severities currently expected to happen on average only once in 100 years could happen as often as once in 3 years by the end of the century, with a 33 times higher risk (from 1% to 33%), while under SSP1-2.6, the increase is fivefold (1%–5%). The significant difference in the increase of drought risk between the two extreme scenarios highlights the urge to reduce greenhouse gases emission in order to avoid extreme drought conditions to become the norm by the end of the century.
Manual outdoor work is essential in many agricultural systems. Climate change will make such work more stressful in many regions due to heat exposure. The physical work capacity metric (PWC) is a physiologically based approach that estimates an individual's work capacity relative to an environment without any heat stress. We computed PWC under recent past and potential future climate conditions. Daily values were computed from five earth system models for three emission scenarios (SSP1‐2.6, SSP3‐7.0, and SSP5‐8.5) and three time periods: 1991–2010 (recent past), 2041–2060 (mid‐century) and 2081–2100 (end‐century). Average daily PWC values were aggregated for the entire year, the growing season, and the warmest 90‐day period of the year. Under recent past climate conditions, the growing season PWC was below 0.86 (86% of full work capacity) on half the current global cropland. With end‐century/SSP5‐8.5 thermal conditions this value was reduced to 0.7, with most affected crop‐growing regions in Southeast and South Asia, West and Central Africa, and northern South America. Average growing season PWC could falls below 0.4 in some important food production regions such as the Indo‐Gangetic plains in Pakistan and India. End‐century PWC reductions were substantially greater than mid‐century reductions. This paper assesses two potential adaptions—reducing direct solar radiation impacts with shade or working at night and reducing the need for hard physical labor with increased mechanization. Removing the effect of direct solar radiation impacts improved PWC values by 0.05 to 0.10 in the hottest periods and regions. Adding mechanization to increase horsepower (HP) per hectare to levels similar to those in some higher income countries would require a 22% increase in global HP availability with Sub‐Saharan Africa needing the most. There may be scope for shifting to less labor‐intensive crops or those with labor peaks in cooler periods or shift work to early morning.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 2045663
- PAR ID:
- 10517075
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Global Change Biology
- Volume:
- 30
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1354-1013
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.17142
