Omid Mazdiyasni, Amir AghaKouchak

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Published date July 31, 2015

Substantial increase in concurrent droughts and heatwaves in the United States

  • Analyzes the changes in concurrences of heatwaves and meteorological droughts from 1960 to 2010
  • Shows a substantial increase in concurrent droughts and heatwaves across most parts of the United States, and a statistically significant shift in the distribution of concurrent extremes
  • Shows that although there is no significant trend in meteorological drought, the concurrence of meteorological droughts and heatwaves shows statistically significant increases across the United States
  • Shows that the tail of the distribution of concurrent drought and heatwave conditions has shifted toward more frequent and extreme concurrent extremes
  • Outlines a statistical approach for investigating continuous change in the cumulative distribution functions of climatic extremes