NOAA Science Seminar: Caribbean Drought: Past, Present, and Future

NOAA Science Seminar Series

Title: Caribbean drought: past, present, and future

Presenter(s): Dr. Dimitris Herrera, Department of Geography & Sustainability, University of Tennessee–Knoxville (this is a webinar using Zoom meeting).

Sponsor(s): Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studies (CISESS) science webinar series.

Seminar Contact(s): Douglas Rao (douglas.rao@noaa.gov).

Remote Access: https://ncsu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0kceigrDIjGd12AtfQ-2QGCXYtWMB7lVMY

Accessibility: Auto-captioning will be provided via Zoom meeting.

Abstract: The Caribbean Islands might suffer from increased aridity as a result of anthropogenic-driven climate change in the coming decades. Concurrently, many paleoclimate records suggest the occurrence of decadal and multidecadal droughts in the Circum-Caribbean region during the last millennium. Understanding drought variability, its trends, and dynamical causes are, therefore, critical for improving the resiliency and adaptation capacity of this region. Here, we review the Caribbean's hydroclimate variability and projected change. We highlight the limitations for assessing drought risk in the Caribbean, including constraints in the horizontal resolutions of current gridded climate products, both observational and modeled products. Between 1950 and 2016, there is a significant drying trend in the Caribbean, as estimated from the "self-calibrating" Palmer drought severity index (scPDSI). Linear trends in scPDSI average a change of-0.09 decade-I (p < 0.05). However, this trend is not homogeneous, and significant trends toward wetter conditions are observed in portions of the Caribbean. We also find a strong influence of both tropical Pacific and North Atlantic oceans in modulating drought variability in the Caribbean and Central America, a condition that prevails since at least the last millennium. Hydroclimate projections based on the "shared socio-economic pathway" (SSP) 5 scenario of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) further suggest a significant drying (p < 0.05) for the Circum-Caribbean through the 21st century, with changes in precipitation, evapotranspiration, and scPDSI of-0.02 mm day-I decade-I, 0.02 mm day-I decade-I, and- 0.17 units decade-I, respectively. These results strongly suggest that the Caribbean is one of the regions projected to suffer from more severe and prolonged droughts as a consequence of anthropogenic climate change. However, the current climate models' horizontal resolutions preclude a more accurate projection at local and regional scales.

Bio(s): Dimitris is a climate scientist from the Dominican Republic. His research aims to understand how climate change might increase drought risk in the Tropical Americas, especially in the Caribbean and Central America. Dimitris is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Geography & Sustainability at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Universidad Aut6noma de Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. His current research focuses on hydroclimate variability and dynamics in the Tropical Americas and how climate change might increase drought risk in this region.

Slides / Recordings / Other materials: Recordings will be shared after the webinar with all who registered and posted on the webinar series webpage (https://ncics.org/cisess-science-seminar-series/).

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{Dimitris Herrera, Assistant Professor, University of Tennessee–Knoxville}