Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Increased Drought Severity Tracks Warming In The United States’ Largest River Basin, Justin T. Martin, Gregory T. Pederson, Connie A. Woodhouse, Edward R. Cook, Gregory J. Mccabe, Kevin J. Anchukaitis, Erika K. Wise, Patrick J. Erger, Larry Dolan, Marketa Mcguire, Subhrendu Gangopadhyay, Katherine J. Chase, Jeremy S. Litell, Stephen T. Gray, Scott St. George, Jonathan M. Friedman, David J. Sauchyn, Jeannine-Marie St-Jacques, John King

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Across the Upper Missouri River Basin, the recent drought of 2000 to 2010, known as the “turn-of-the-century drought,” was likely more severe than any in the instrumental record including the Dust Bowl drought. However, until now, adequate proxy records needed to better understand this event with regard to long-term variability have been lacking. Here we examine 1,200 y of streamflow from a network of 17 new tree-ring–based reconstructions for gages across the upper Missouri basin and an independent reconstruction of warm-season regional temperature in order to place the recent drought in a long-term climate context. We find that temperature has …