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

Buda Su; Jinlong Huang; Thomas Fischer; Yanjun Wang; Zbigniew W Kundzewicz; Jianqing Zhai; Hemin Sun; Anqian Wang; Xiaofan Zeng; Guojie Wang; Hui Tao; Marco Gemmer; Xiucang Li; Tong Jiang

doi:10.1073/pnas.1802129115

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

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Oct 16;115(42):10600-10605. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1802129115. Epub 2018 Oct 1.

Authors

Buda Su^{1

2

3}, Jinlong Huang^{1

4}, Thomas Fischer^{3

5}, Yanjun Wang², Zbigniew W Kundzewicz^{6

7}, Jianqing Zhai^{2

3}, Hemin Sun², Anqian Wang^{1

4}, Xiaofan Zeng⁸, Guojie Wang², Hui Tao¹, Marco Gemmer^{3

5}, Xiucang Li^{2

3}, Tong Jiang^{9

3}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China.
² Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disaster, School of Geographic Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.
³ National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing 100081, China.
⁴ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
⁵ Department of Geosciences, Eberhard Karls University, 72074 Tübingen, Germany.
⁶ Institute for Agricultural and Forest Environment, Polish Academy of Sciences, 60809 Poznan, Poland; kundzewicz@yahoo.com jiangtong@cma.gov.cn.
⁷ Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 14473 Potsdam, Germany.
⁸ School of Hydropower & Information Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.
⁹ Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disaster, School of Geographic Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China; kundzewicz@yahoo.com jiangtong@cma.gov.cn.

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.

Keywords: China; drought; drought losses; global warming; projections.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

China
Droughts / prevention & control
Droughts / statistics & numerical data*
Global Warming*
Humans
Models, Theoretical*
Seasons*
Temperature
Time Factors