NASA Global Drought Monitoring Workshop April 11-12, 2011 Siegfried Schubert NASA/GSFC

1. Report on the recent WCRP workshop on “Drought Predictability and Prediction in a Changing Climate:Assessing Current Knowledge and Capabilities, User Requirements and Research Priorities” held in Barcelona on 2-4 March 2011 NASA Global Drought Monitoring Workshop April 11-12, 2011 Siegfried Schubert NASA/GSFC Global Modeling and Assimilation Office

2. Sponsored and funded by WCRP, NASA, NOAA, NSF, the Catalan Institute of Climate Sciences, and the La Caixa Foundation • Organized by WCRP’s Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) and the Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) projects. • 139 attendees (research and applications of drought information) representing over 30 different countries

3. Background: WCRP Extremes Cross-Cut Activity(http://www.clivar.org/organization/extremes/extremes.php) • Drought Interest Group (DIG) • CLIVAR and GEWEX: how to move forward as a wider international activity? • http://www.clivar.org/organization/extremes/dig.php • Draft drought white paper • Current understanding/capabilities and user needs • http://www.clivar.org/organization/extremes/drought_wp.php • The drought workshop • http://drought.wcrp-climate.org/workshop/index.htm • Includes agenda and links to presentations

4. Workshop Goals • Assess Understanding of Drought Mechanisms and Predictability • time scales, spatial scales, region, seasonality • Assess Current Drought Prediction/Monitoring Capabilities • predictability versus prediction skill • Assess User Requirements for Drought Prediction Information • capabilities versus needs versus predictability limits • Define Research Needs to Improve Drought Predictions • integrated/coordinated program that addresses research gaps

5. Predictability Current Skill User Needs 10000 km 1000 km High Spatial Scales Low 100 km 10 km Unpredictable 1 km Day Minute 1 yr 10 yrs Season Week 100 yrs Time Scales

6. Pathways to Predictability Regional Forcing and land feedbacks Local Impacts, user needs Global-Scale Atmospheric Changes SST anomalies Key Phenomena, variables ENSO, PDO, AMO, warm pool variability, Global Warming, etc planetary waves, hydrological cycle, monsoons, Hadley Cell, Walker Circulation precipitation, soil moisture, snow, low level jets, dust, vegetation, land/atmosphere contrasts, changes in weather soil moisture, stream flow, precipitation, ground water, lakes, reservoirs Improved modeling of “downstream” impacts on land hydrology, higher resolution, downscaling Improvements in global coupled models, estimates of ocean variability and predictability, GHGs Reduce uncertainties in atmos. response to SST, water cycle, atmos. variability and predictability Modeling Issues Reduce uncertainties in modeling land/atmosphere interactions, predictability of weather “regimes”, regional climate phenomena

7. Highlights of Discussion Sessions • A. Prediction and Predictability • Mechanisms/predictability/prediction • What we can currently predict depends very much on time/space scales and location. Priorities should be based on user needs, and linked to drought susceptibility in particular regions. • Develop case studies to assess mechanisms and predictability. • Identify regions that are prone to drought and build institutional partnerships in these areas to generate more information and further case studies. • Provide an annual drought outlook, providing a synthesis across regional groups. • Promote greater investment in data for climate research by Governments. • Address both dry and wet cycles (i.e. floods and droughts). • Modeling Issues: • Take advantage of seasonal hindcast data sets being made available by the various centers, as well as the new IPCC (CMIP 5) high-resolution runs. • Make use of factor separation: when considering multiple factors, must consider non-linear interactions between factors. • B. User needs • Forge stronger links between research priorities and user needs, using an intermediate organization/group as an interface between scientists and users (e.g. IRI, NOAA Climate Service, Regional Outlook Forums). • Hold workshops to train users on how to use climate information. • Formalize capacity building on both sides using gaming with historical data, looking at what users should do with perfect forecasts prior to an event. • Assess the implications of model forecasts (e.g. the price of food). • Develop a drought impacts database would be useful to help refine useful products, to calibrate indices, and to aid drought response.

8. Key Workshop Recommendations • Summarize current understanding of drought: Develop a drought catalogue that provides a summary of our current understanding of the causes of drought world-wide (e.g. a map where in each location we summarize the important time scales (e.g., subseasonal, seasonal, decadal, centennial) and mechanisms (e.g. ENSO, PDO, land feedbacks, global warming) with links to relevant publications).   • Volunteers:  Ron Stewart, WenjuCai, Sumant Nigam, Richard Heim • Carry out coordinated research with links to user needs: Define case studies and carry out coordinated analysis of the mechanisms, predictability and prediction skill. Here we will choose cases (e.g. recent Russian heat wave, Australian drought) that have a high profile and strong links to user needs. This could evolve into some kind of a more regular annual assessment of world-wide drought.  • Volunteers: Vikram Mehta,Bart van den Hurk, Sonya Seneviratne, Paul Dirmeyer, Roberto Mechoso, Robert Vautard • Facilitate transitioning current capabilities to operations: Define and develop an experimental global drought early warning system (DEWS) that takes advantage of our current capabilities in drought prediction and monitoring (with links to the NIDIS drought portal and other national and regional drought monitoring activities). • Volunteers: Marty Hoerling, Richard Heim, Kingtse Mo, Eric Wood, Randy Koster

9. Next steps • The three key recommendations/action items are being developed by the initial group of volunteers (also being reviewed by WCRP) • Approach funding agencies for how to move forward on recommendations, building on existing capabilities • Complete the white paper and produce a journal publication that summarizes key issues and recommendations

10. Predictability Current Skill User Needs Research on decadal prediction, global warming impacts, role of land use changes, aerosols, etc. 10000 km 1000 km High Spatial Scales Low Improved ENSO prediction and regional response, downscaling , improved land/atmos coupling, soil moisture, snow observations, etc Higher resolution, improved Rossby wave impacts, land/atmos coupling, land initial states, improved atmos/land seasonal cycle, weather extremes, etc 100 km 10 km Unpredictable 1 km Day Minute 1 yr 10 yrs Season Week 100 yrs Time Scales

11. Extra

12. USCLIVAR Drought Working Group AGCM Simulations • (http://journals.ametsoc.org/page/CLIVAR_Drought) Leading REOFs of Annual Mean SST Leading Rotated EOFs annual mean SST Linear Trend Pattern (LT) Forced with 2 STDs Amplitude for each REOF Pacific Pattern (Pac) Atlantic Pattern (Atl)

13. Annual Mean Responses to Pacific and Atlantic SST (for each model: CCM3, NSIPP1, GFS, GFDL, CAM3.5) Regions: Land Only Precipitation (mm/day) Precipitation (mm/day) Precipitation (mm/day/3.85) Precipitation (mm/day) Tsfc (° C) Tsfc (° C) Tsfc (° C) Tsfc (° C) Color Code of SST Combinations

14. Leading Rotated EOFs of Intraseasonal (Monthly JJA) V250mb REOF 1 REOF 2 Based on MERRA: 1979- 2010 REOF 3 REOF 4 REOF 5

15. Links Between Climate Extremes and Leading REOFs • Correlation ( T2m, V250 REOF 1 ) • Correlation ( Precip, V250 REOF 4) June 2003 T2m Anomalies July 1993 Precip Anomalies European Heat Wave (-)Signature of REOF 1 US Floods (+)Signature of REOF 4 June 1988Precip Anomalies July 2010 T2m Anomalies Russian Heat Wave (+)Signature of REOF 1 US Drought (-)Signature of REOF 4 Based on Monthly MERRAOutput JJA (1979-2008)

16. Workshop Sessions • Session 1: Understanding Drought and its Predictability • Understanding Drought and its Predictability (range of drivers such as SST, land-sfc and terrain, global and regional climate variability such as monsoons and ENSO, time scales ranging from subseasonal to climate change, attribution of historical droughts) • Session 2: Prediction of drought • Prediction of drought (current capabilities, experimental prediction approaches for subseasonal, seasonal and longer prediction, linking high resolution global/regional climate models and basin/hydrology models, etc) • Session 3: Regionality of Drought and its Prediction • Regionality of Drought and its Prediction (differences and similarities of drought mechanisms, prediction challenges, and user concerns/needs in various regions of the world • Session 4: Monitoring Drought • Current state of monitoring capabilities versus user needs, evolution of monitoring to include a drought early warning capability • Session 5: Linking User needs with current and expected prediction capabilities • Current and potential prediction capabilities versus user needs, decision-maker needs including needs for drought management policies, and how research findings match up against user needs regarding the prediction of hydrological, meteorological and agricultural drought, and related economic, societal and ecosystems effects