How unusual was Australia's 2017–2019 Tinderbox Drought?
Australia's Murray-Darling Basin experienced three consecutive years of meteorological drought across 2017–2019, collectively named the ‘Tinderbox Drought’. Rainfall deficits during the three-year drought were most pronounced in the Australian cool season (April to September). Deficits in both...
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Elsevier
2024-12-01
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| Series: | Weather and Climate Extremes |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212094724000951 |
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| author | Georgina Falster Sloan Coats Nerilie Abram |
| author_facet | Georgina Falster Sloan Coats Nerilie Abram |
| author_sort | Georgina Falster |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Australia's Murray-Darling Basin experienced three consecutive years of meteorological drought across 2017–2019, collectively named the ‘Tinderbox Drought’. Rainfall deficits during the three-year drought were most pronounced in the Australian cool season (April to September). Deficits in both the cool season and annual total rainfall were unprecedented in the instrumental record. However, the instrumental record provides just one of a range of equally plausible climate trajectories that could have occurred during this period. To determine if the Tinderbox Drought was outside this range, we used observational data from prior to the onset of the drought to construct Linear Inverse Models (LIMs) that emulate the stationary statistics of Australian rainfall and its connection to global sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. Overall, we find that rainfall deficits were most unusual in the northern Murray-Darling Basin, and during the final year of the drought. The global SST anomalies observed during the first two years of the Tinderbox Drought, particularly the cool anomalies in the central tropical Pacific and western Indian Ocean, are not typically associated with low rainfall across the Murray-Darling Basin. In terms of single-year rainfall anomalies, the only aspect of the Tinderbox Drought that was beyond the range of the LIMs was annual-total rainfall over the northern Murray-Darling Basin during 2019. This coincided with an extreme positive Indian Ocean Dipole event that was also beyond the range of the LIMs. When considered in terms of basin-wide rainfall over the full three years, rainfall deficits during the Tinderbox Drought were beyond the LIM range in terms of both cool-season and annual-total rainfall. This suggests an anthropogenic contribution to the severity of the drought—likely exacerbated by the 2019 extreme positive Indian Ocean Dipole event. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-b25c502e219540ffb9aa937fa7dbda65 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2212-0947 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-12-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
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| series | Weather and Climate Extremes |
| spelling | doaj-art-b25c502e219540ffb9aa937fa7dbda652024-12-08T06:09:50ZengElsevierWeather and Climate Extremes2212-09472024-12-0146100734How unusual was Australia's 2017–2019 Tinderbox Drought?Georgina Falster0Sloan Coats1Nerilie Abram2Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, ACT, 2601, Canberra, Australia; ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, Australian National University, ACT, 2601, Canberra, Australia; Corresponding author. Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, ACT, 2601, Canberra, Australia.Department of Earth Sciences, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, USAResearch School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, ACT, 2601, Canberra, Australia; ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, Australian National University, ACT, 2601, Canberra, Australia; Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, Australian National University, ACT, 2601, Canberra, AustraliaAustralia's Murray-Darling Basin experienced three consecutive years of meteorological drought across 2017–2019, collectively named the ‘Tinderbox Drought’. Rainfall deficits during the three-year drought were most pronounced in the Australian cool season (April to September). Deficits in both the cool season and annual total rainfall were unprecedented in the instrumental record. However, the instrumental record provides just one of a range of equally plausible climate trajectories that could have occurred during this period. To determine if the Tinderbox Drought was outside this range, we used observational data from prior to the onset of the drought to construct Linear Inverse Models (LIMs) that emulate the stationary statistics of Australian rainfall and its connection to global sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. Overall, we find that rainfall deficits were most unusual in the northern Murray-Darling Basin, and during the final year of the drought. The global SST anomalies observed during the first two years of the Tinderbox Drought, particularly the cool anomalies in the central tropical Pacific and western Indian Ocean, are not typically associated with low rainfall across the Murray-Darling Basin. In terms of single-year rainfall anomalies, the only aspect of the Tinderbox Drought that was beyond the range of the LIMs was annual-total rainfall over the northern Murray-Darling Basin during 2019. This coincided with an extreme positive Indian Ocean Dipole event that was also beyond the range of the LIMs. When considered in terms of basin-wide rainfall over the full three years, rainfall deficits during the Tinderbox Drought were beyond the LIM range in terms of both cool-season and annual-total rainfall. This suggests an anthropogenic contribution to the severity of the drought—likely exacerbated by the 2019 extreme positive Indian Ocean Dipole event.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212094724000951 |
| spellingShingle | Georgina Falster Sloan Coats Nerilie Abram How unusual was Australia's 2017–2019 Tinderbox Drought? Weather and Climate Extremes |
| title | How unusual was Australia's 2017–2019 Tinderbox Drought? |
| title_full | How unusual was Australia's 2017–2019 Tinderbox Drought? |
| title_fullStr | How unusual was Australia's 2017–2019 Tinderbox Drought? |
| title_full_unstemmed | How unusual was Australia's 2017–2019 Tinderbox Drought? |
| title_short | How unusual was Australia's 2017–2019 Tinderbox Drought? |
| title_sort | how unusual was australia s 2017 2019 tinderbox drought |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212094724000951 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT georginafalster howunusualwasaustralias20172019tinderboxdrought AT sloancoats howunusualwasaustralias20172019tinderboxdrought AT nerilieabram howunusualwasaustralias20172019tinderboxdrought |