Recent extreme drought events in the Amazon rainforest: assessment of different precipitation and evapotranspiration datasets and drought indicators

Papastefanou, Phillip; Zang, Christian S.; Angelov, Zlatan; de Castro, Aline Anderson; Jimenez, Juan Carlos; De Rezende, Luiz Felipe Campos; Ruscica, Romina C.; Sakschewski, Boris; Sörensson, Anna A.; Thonicke, Kirsten; Vera, Carolina; Viovy, Nicolas; Von Randow, Celso; Rammig, Anja

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3843-2022

Articles | Volume 19, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3843-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3843-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 16

Research article

|

24 Aug 2022

Research article |

| 24 Aug 2022

Recent extreme drought events in the Amazon rainforest: assessment of different precipitation and evapotranspiration datasets and drought indicators

Phillip Papastefanou, Christian S. Zang, Zlatan Angelov, Aline Anderson de Castro, Juan Carlos Jimenez, Luiz Felipe Campos De Rezende, Romina C. Ruscica, Boris Sakschewski, Anna A. Sörensson, Kirsten Thonicke, Carolina Vera, Nicolas Viovy, Celso Von Randow, and Anja Rammig

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3843-2022-supplement

Data sets

CRU - NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis Physical Sciences Laboratory https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/ncep/

ERA5 European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/datasets/reanalysis-datasets/era5

Global Land Data Assimilation System Matthew Rodell and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center https://ldas.gsfc.nasa.gov/gldas/forcing-data

Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission George J. Huffman and David T. Bolvin https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets/

GPCC Full Data Monthly Product Version 2022 Udo Schneider, Stephanie Hänsel, Peter Finger, Elke Rustemeier, and Markus Ziese https://opendata.dwd.de/climate_environment/GPCC/html/download_gate.html

Derived Optimal Linear Combination Evapotranspiration - DOLCE v3.0 Sanaa Hobeichi https://researchdata.edu.au/derived-optimal-linear-dolce-v30/1697055

GLEAM v3 Brecht Martens, Diego G. Miralles, Hans Lievens, Robin van der Schalie, Richard A. M. de Jeu, Diego Fernández-Prieto, Hylke E. Beck, Wouter A. Dorigo, and Niko E. C. Verhoest https://www.gleam.eu/datasets

Model code and software

Scripts for reproducing the analysis, figures and tables of the bg-2020-425 study Phillip Papastefanou https://github.com/PhillipPapastefanou/DroughtAnalysis

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Short summary

The Amazon rainforest has been hit by multiple severe drought events. In this study, we assess the severity and spatial extent of the extreme drought years 2005, 2010 and 2015/16 in the Amazon. Using nine different precipitation datasets and three drought indicators we find large differences in drought stress across the Amazon region. We conclude that future studies should use multiple rainfall datasets and drought indicators when estimating the impact of drought stress in the Amazon region.