Characteristics of agricultural droughts in CMIP6 historical simulations and future projections

Abstract. This study explores changes in agricultural drought event characteristics in projections of Earth System Models (ESMs) participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) for different future scenarios based on three Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP). To quantify the intensity of agricultural droughts, the 6-month Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI6) with a 65-year reference period is applied to the simulations of 18 ESMs. In a first step, these ESMs are evaluated based on performance metrics and pattern correlations of drought related variables including precipitation and approximated reference evapotranspiration with reanalysis datasets including ERA5 and CRU. With this we extend the model benchmarking performed in the third chapter of the IPCC AR6 by 15 years and additional variables. In a second step we analyze global and regional projected SPEI6 distributions to estimate and characterize the changes in agricultural drought in the future based on multi-model means of change rates, distributions and relative area covered by specific events. We quantify the change of drought index values for 42 IPCC AR6 WG1 reference regions individually with a focus on those with most harvest area and find negative trends in water budget and SPEI for higher emission scenarios in most of them, particularly in the Mediterranean and other arid regions. This agrees with other recent studies. Increasing reference evapotranspiration emerges as the dominant driver for drier conditions in these regions. What is considered as the driest 2.3 % months during 1950–2014 is projected to be the new normal or moderate condition in arid regions by 2100, following a high emission future scenario (SSP5-8.5). For this scenario, 40 % of the harvest regions surface is considered to be under extreme drought conditions during Northern Hemisphere autumn. Under a low emission scenario (SSP1-2.6) with an expected global warming of 1.8 °C it would be less than 10 %. Our results show a significant difference between future scenarios regarding distribution shifts and spatial extent of extreme drought conditions in harvesting regions and can serves as a foundation for further impact and mitigation studies.