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Understanding and detecting super‐extreme droughts in Southwest China through an integrated approach and index
Author(s) -
Wang Lin,
Chen Wen,
Zhou Wen,
Huang Gang
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
quarterly journal of the royal meteorological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.744
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1477-870X
pISSN - 0035-9009
DOI - 10.1002/qj.2593
Subject(s) - climatology , china , precipitation , index (typography) , metric (unit) , feature (linguistics) , environmental science , geography , environmental resource management , meteorology , geology , computer science , engineering , linguistics , operations management , philosophy , archaeology , world wide web
In the last decade, a series of super‐extreme droughts have swept across Southwest China (SWC). However, the essential features behind them are not yet fully understood and traditional drought indices as well as precipitation fail to describe them, due to the lack of a comprehensive treatment of drought. We propose an integrated metric, the Comprehensive Multiscalar Indicator (CMI), as a new criterion for super‐drought detection. Re‐examination of SWC droughts illuminates the essential feature of super‐drought events: a combination of multiple stresses on water resources, which highlights the utility of the CMI.