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Do the recent severe droughts in the Amazonia have the same period of length?

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Abstract

We propose a new measure based on drought period length to assess the temporal difference between the recent two severe droughts of 2005 and 2010 in the Amazonia. The sensitivity of the measure is demonstrated by disclosing the distinct spatial responding mechanisms of the Northeastern and Southwestern Amazon (NA, SA) to the surrounding sea surface temperature (SST) variabilities. The Pacific and Atlantic oceans have different roles on the precipitation patterns in Amazonia. More specifically, the very dry periods in the NA are influenced by El Niño events, while the very dry periods in the SA are affected by the anomalously warming of the SST in the North Atlantic. Our analysis discloses convincingly that the drought 2005 hit SA, which is correlated to the North Atlantic only. Furthermore, it suggests that there are two phases in the drought 2010: (1) it was started in the NA in August 2009 co-occurred with the El Niño event, and (2) later shifted the center of action to SA resulted from anomalously high SST in North Atlantic, which further intensifies the impacts on the spatial coverage.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by the NNSFC (Grant Nos. 11305062, 11135001), the DFG/FAPESP (Grant No. IRTG 1740/TRP 2011/50151-0), and Government of the Russian Federation (Agreement No. 14.Z50.31.0033 with Institute of Applied Physics RAS). All data for this paper is properly cited and referred to in the reference list.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China

    Yong Zou

  2. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, P. O. Box 60 12 03, 14412, Potsdam, Germany

    Yong Zou & Jürgen Kurths

  3. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, São José dos Campos, São Paulo, Brazil

    Elbert E. N. Macau & Antônio M. T. Ramos

  4. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Cachoeira Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil

    Gilvan Sampaio

  5. Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 603950, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

    Jürgen Kurths

  6. Institute for Complex Systems and Mathematical Biology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, AB243UE, UK

    Jürgen Kurths

  7. Department of Control Theory, Nizhny Novgorod State University, Gagarin Avenue 23, 606950, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

    Jürgen Kurths

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  1. Yong Zou
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  2. Elbert E. N. Macau
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  3. Gilvan Sampaio
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  4. Antônio M. T. Ramos
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  5. Jürgen Kurths
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Correspondence to Yong Zou.

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Zou, Y., Macau, E.E.N., Sampaio, G. et al. Do the recent severe droughts in the Amazonia have the same period of length? . Clim Dyn 46, 3279–3285 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-015-2768-x

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