Abstract
The standardized precipitation index (SPI)—a meteorological drought index—uses various reference precipitation periods. Generally, drought projections using future climate change scenarios compare reference SPIs between baseline and future climates. Here, future drought was projected based on reference precipitation under the baseline climate to quantitatively compare changes in the frequency and severity of future drought. High-resolution climate change scenarios were produced using HadGEM2-AO General Circulation Model (GCM) scenarios for Korean weather stations. Baseline and future 3-month cumulative precipitation data were fitted to gamma distribution; results showed that precipitation of future climate is more than the precipitation of the baseline climate. When future precipitation was set as that of the baseline climate instead of the future climate, results indicated that drought intensity and frequency will decrease because the non-exceedance probability for the same precipitation is larger in the baseline climate than in future climate. However, due to increases in regional precipitation variability over time, some regions with opposite trends were also identified. Therefore, it is necessary to understand baseline and future climates in a region to better design resilience strategies and mechanisms that can help cope with future drought.
Highlights
Drought is a natural disaster that causes widespread damage incurring severe economic, social, and environmental costs [1]
Studies that examined changes in future droughts calculated the frequency and severity. This is because future climate precipitation is less than the baseline, in most of the high-latitude of meteorological droughts as a criterion of a non-exceedance probability of precipitation over each regions in Future 3, drought has likely been overestimated due to the increase in future precipitation period
In these areas it may be sufficient to prepare for future drought using current since the drought criteria precipitation differs by period
Summary
Drought is a natural disaster that causes widespread damage incurring severe economic, social, and environmental costs [1]. Calculated the baseline and future Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) using the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario [16]. They projected that drought frequency will increase in the future. Park et al [23] projected the future drought in Korea using the RCP8.5 scenario and found projected increases in both drought duration and severity In these studies, drought was compared based on each non-exceedance probability in the baseline and future climates. The SPI known as the representative parametric methods have defined the drought as excess probability, and the baseline and the future period (that is, the sample) are different, resulting in a difference of the criteria precipitation defining the drought.
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