Skillful Decadal Prediction of Droughts Over Large‐Scale River Basins Across the Globe

Abstract

AbstractLong‐term droughts, closely linked to oceanic climate variability, are a great threat to the global economy, as well as food and water security. Skillful predictions will provide enormous benefit to the human societies. By taking advantages of the newly available decadal hindcasts and target experiments from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6), this paper evaluates potential predictability and decadal prediction skill of droughts over major river basins across the globe. The results show that the CMIP6 drought prediction is skillful within 3–6 years, and the skill score is 11% higher than CMIP5 over 47% river basins. Prediction skill is enhanced by 15% (16%) over 47% (49%) basins, forced by the actual sea surface temperature over tropical eastern Pacific (North Atlantic). Our findings imply the possibility of drought adaptation based on skillful decadal prediction with sufficient lead time.