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Research Project: Uncertainty of Future Water Availability Due to Climate Change and Impacts on the Long Term Sustainability and Resilience of Agricultural Lands in the Southern Great Plains

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Title: The evolution, propagation, and spread of flash drought in the central United States during 2012

Author
item BASARA, JEFFREY - UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
item CHRISTIAN, JORDAN - UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
item WAKEFIELD, RYANN - UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
item OTKIN, JASON - UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
item HUNT, ERIC - ATMOSPHERIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH
item BROWN, DAVID

Submitted to: Environmental Research Letters
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/20/2019
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Agricultural systems in the Great Plains are routinely impacted by drought. Of particular concern are so-called flash droughts, which arise quickly on the landscape and can intensify rapidly in a matter of weeks. A flash drought in 2012 affected large portions of the Great Plains, with extensive economic and ecological consequences. In this study, the nature of the 2012 flash drought is examined using an innovative methodology that addresses both land surface and atmospheric conditions and interactions. Results from the study detail the factors that controlled the 2012 flash drought’s initiation and spread, and can be used as a baseline analysis to examine the behavior of similar flash droughts in the Great Plains in the past.

Technical Abstract: During 2012, flash drought developed and subsequently expanded across large areas of the Central United States (US) with severe impacts to overall water resources and warm-season agricultural production. Recent efforts have yielded a methodology to detect and quantify flash drought occurrence and rate of intensification from climatological datasets via the standardized evaporative stress ratio (SESR). This study utilizes the North American Regional Reanalysis and applied the SESR methodology to quantify the spatial and temporal development and expansion of flash drought conditions during 2012. Critical results include the identification of the flash drought epicenter and subsequent spread of flash drought conditions radially outward with varying rates of intensification. Further, a comparison of the SESR analyses with surface-atmosphere coupling metrics demonstrated that a hostile environment had developed across the region, which limited the formation of deep atmospheric convection, exacerbated evaporative stress, and perpetuated flash drought development and enhanced its radial spread across the Central US.