Quantification of human contribution to soil moisture-based terrestrial aridity.
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Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36369164.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-34071-5 and PMC identifier 9652356.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Current knowledge of the spatiotemporal patterns of changes in soil moisture-based terrestrial aridity has considerable uncertainty. Using Standardized Soil Moisture Index (SSI) calculated from multi-source merged data sets, we find widespread drying in the global midlatitudes, and wetting in the northern subtropics and in spring between 45°N-65°N, during 1971-2016. Formal detection and attribution analysis shows that human forcings, especially greenhouse gases, contribute significantly to the changes in 0-10 cm SSI during August-November, and 0-100 cm during September-April. We further develop and apply an emergent constraint method on the future SSI's signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios and trends under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 5-8.5. The results show continued significant presence of human forcings and more rapid drying in 0-10 cm than 0-100 cm. Our findings highlight the predominant human contributions to spatiotemporally heterogenous terrestrial aridification, providing a basis for drought and flood risk management.
Medical subject headings
- Soil
- Droughts