The word “drought” typically conjures images of parched soil, dust-swept prairies, depleted reservoirs, and dry creek beds, all the result of weeks or seasons of persistently dry atmospheric conditions.
Such occurrences—known as flash droughts—are the focus of a new paper authored by Assistant Professor Craig Ramseyer of the College of Natural Resources and Environment and published in the Journal of Hydrometeorology. The paper’s finding is that Caribbean Islands are uniquely susceptible to sudden droughts, and Ramseyer advocates for alternative methodologies to more accurately measure dry conditions in the region.
“The tropics have extremely intense solar radiation, so atmospheric processes tend to be expedited,” said Ramseyer, who teaches in the Department of Geography. “Despite often receiving daily rainfall, island ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to drought conditions.”
Ramseyer, whose research focuses on tropical rainfall and severe weather impacts in the Caribbean, utilized a new drought index that considers the atmospheric demand for moisture to identify drought risk conditions instead of more traditional soil moisture measurements.
“This new drought index is really developed to try to identify the first trigger of drought by focusing on evaporative demand,” said Ramseyer, who collaborated on the paper with Paul Miller, an assistant professor at Louisiana State University. “Evaporative demand is a measure of how thirsty the atmosphere is and how much moisture it can collect from soil or plant matter.”
2023-12-16 05:41:02
Source from phys.org rnrn
