Ellison et al. (2026) The Drivers and Impacts of Future Analogs of the 2011–2014 Drought in the Western and Central United States

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-03-31
• Authors: Lucas Ellison, Sloan Coats
• DOI: 10.1029/2025jd045010

Research Groups

Not specified in the abstract.

Short Summary

This study assesses how anthropogenic climate change alters the large-scale drivers and impacts of droughts, focusing on simulated analogs of the 2011-2014 western and central US drought, finding fewer such droughts in the future but with altered hydrological and ecological impacts and potentially increased predictability of their drivers.

Objective

• To present an integrated assessment of changes in large-scale drivers, hydrological, and ecological impacts for simulated analogs of the 2011-2014 observed drought in the western and central United States under anthropogenic climate change.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Western and central United States.
• Temporal Scale: Observed drought (2011-2014); Simulated droughts (1900-2100).

Methodology and Data

• Models used: 16 climate models (63 simulations).
• Data sources: Climate model simulations. A framework for identifying and classifying droughts based on precipitation deficits and spatiotemporal characteristics was applied.

Main Results

• There will be fewer future droughts with spatiotemporal characteristics similar to the 2011-2014 observed event.
• The severity of hydrological and ecological impacts of these specific droughts changes, even relative to secular climate change.
• These specific droughts become more consistently associated with certain large-scale atmosphere-ocean conditions.

Contributions

• Provides an integrated assessment of future changes in drivers and impacts for specific types of droughts under climate change.
• Suggests that the drivers of these particular drought analogs may become more predictable in the future.
• Utilizes a comprehensive framework to identify and classify a large number of simulated droughts across multiple climate models.

Funding

Not specified in the abstract.

Citation

@article{Ellison2026Drivers,
  author = {Ellison, Lucas and Coats, Sloan},
  title = {The Drivers and Impacts of Future Analogs of the 2011–2014 Drought in the Western and Central United States},
  journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1029/2025jd045010},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025jd045010}
}