Global and regional drought dynamics in the climate warming era

This article investigates whether the highest global temperature during 2001―2012 triggered some changes in drought area, frequency, intensity and duration. New satellite-based vegetation health (VH) technology and regional in situ data were used for this analysis. The VH indices were used to investigate trends in global and regional drought area for several drought intensities (starting from moderate-to-exceptional (ME)) during the warmest decade, after 2000. Two of the most recent strongest droughts, 2010 in Russia and 2011 in the USA, are also discussed. During 2001―2012, droughts of ME, severe-to-exceptional (SE) and extreme-to-exceptional (EE) severity covered 17―35%, 7―15% and 2―6% of the total area of the world, respectively. No trends in drought areas for these levels of severity were found. Regional analysis was performed on Ukraine (from both satellite and in situ data). Annual mean temperature of the entire country follows global warming tendency, although the intensity is twice stronger, 1.45°C over 50-year period. The droughts of SE and EE severity during the growing season normally affect 25―60% (up to 80% of the major crop area) and 5―10% (up to 20%) of the entire country, respectively, and the later leading up to 40% of losses in Ukrainian grain production.