Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Climate change

Dichotomy of drought and deluge

Freshwater deficits and heavy rainfall have been projected to intensify in a warming climate. An analysis of hydrological data suggests that past changes in wet and dry extremes were more complex than a simple amplification of existing patterns.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Patterns of precipitation define the wet and dry regions.

References

  1. IPCC Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (eds Stocker, T. F. et al.) (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013).

  2. Greve, P. et al. Nature Geosci. 7, 716–721 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Chung, E-S., Soden, B., Sohn, B. J. & Shi, L. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 11636–11641 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Westra, S. et al. Rev. Geophys. 52, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2014RG000464 (2014).

  5. Held, I. M. & Soden, B. J. J. Clim. 19, 5686–5699 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Durack, P. J., Wijffels, S. E. & Matear, R. J. Science 336, 455–458 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Liu, C. & Allan, R. P. Environ. Res. Lett. 8, 034002 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Chou, C. et al. Nature Geosci. 6, 263–267 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Hwang, Y-T., Frierson, D. M. W. & Kang, S. M. Geophys. Res. Lett. 40, 2845–2850 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Maidment, R. I. et al. J. Geophys. Res. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2014JD021927 (2014).

  11. Hawkins, E., Joshi, M. & Frame, D. Nature Clim. Change 4, 646–647 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Karoly, D. J. Nature Geosci. 7, 551–552 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Richard P. Allan.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Allan, R. Dichotomy of drought and deluge. Nature Geosci 7, 700–701 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2243

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2243

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing