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We compare changes in low birth weight and child malnutrition in 13 African countries under projected climate change versus socio-economic development scenarios. Climate scenarios are created by linking surface temperature gradients with declines in seasonal rainfall sea along with warming values of 1 °C and 2 °C. Socio-economic scenarios are developed by assigning regionally specific changes in access to household electricity and mother's education. Using these scenarios, in combination with established models of children's health, we investigate and compare the changes in predicted health outcomes. We find that the negative effects of warming and drying on child stunting could be mitigated by positive development trends associated with increasing mothers’ educational status and household access to electricity. We find less potential for these trends to mitigate how warming and drying trends impact birth weights. In short, under warming and drying, the risk of more malnourished children is greater than the risk of more children with low birth weights, but increases in child malnutrition could be averted in regions that increase access to educational resources and basic infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) and the University of Washington (UW) run parallel drought monitoring systems over the continental United States based on the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS). The NCEP system uses four land surface models (LSMs): Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC), Noah, Mosaic, and Sacramento (SAC). The UW system uses VIC, SAC, Noah, and the Community Land Model (CLM). An assessment of differences in drought characteristics using both systems for the period 1979-2008 was performed. For soil moisture (SM) percentiles and runoff indices, differences are relatively small among different LSMs in the same system. However, the ensemble mean differences between the two systems are large over the western United States-in some cases exceeding 20% for SM and runoff percentile differences. These differences are most apparent after 2002 when the NCEP system transitioned to use the real-time North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) and its precipitation gauge station data. (The UW system went into real-time operation in 2005.) Experiments were performed to address the sources of uncertainties. Comparison of simulations using the two systems with different model forcings indicates that the precipitation forcing differences are the primary source of the SM and runoff differences. While temperature, shortwave and longwave radiation, and wind speed forcing differences are also large after 2002, their contributions to SM and runoff differences are much smaller than precipitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the occurrence and variability of drought events in historic and projected future climate is essential to managing natural resources and setting policy. The Midwest region is a key contributor in corn and soybean production, and the occurrence of droughts may affect both quantity and quality of these crops. Soil moisture observations play an essential role in understanding the severity and persistence of drought. Considering the scarcity of the long-term soil moisture datasets, soil moisture observations in Illinois have been one of the best datasets for studies of soil moisture. In the present study, the authors use the existing observational dataset and then reconstruct long-term historic time series (1916–2007) of soil moisture data using a land surface model to study the effects of historic climate variability and projected future climate change on regional-scale (Illinois and Indiana) drought. The objectives of this study are to (i) estimate changes and trends associated with climate variables in historic climate variability (1916–2007) and in projected future climate change (2009–99) and (ii) identify regional-scale droughts and associated severity, areal extent, and temporal extent under historic and projected future climate using reconstructed soil moisture data and gridded climatology for the period 1916–2007 using the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model. The authors reconstructed the soil moisture for a long-term (1916–2007) historic time series using the VIC model, which was calibrated for monthly streamflow and soil moisture at eight U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) gauge stations and Illinois Climate Network’s (ICN) soil moisture stations, respectively, and then it was evaluated for soil moisture, persistence of soil moisture, and soil temperature and heat fluxes. After calibration and evaluation, the VIC model was implemented for historic (1916–2007) and projected future climate (2009–99) periods across the study domain. The nonparametric Mann–Kendall test was used to estimate trends using the gridded climatology of precipitation and air temperature variables. Trends were also estimated for annual anomalies of soil moisture variables, snow water equivalent, and total runoff using a long-term time series of the historic period. Results indicate that precipitation, minimum air temperature, total column soil moisture, and runoff have experienced upward trends, whereas maximum air temperature, frozen soil moisture, and snow water equivalent experienced downward trends. Furthermore, the decreasing trends were significant for the frozen soil moisture in the study domain. The results demonstrate that retrospective drought periods and their severity were reconstructed using model-simulated data. Results also indicate that the study region is experiencing reduced extreme and exceptional droughts with lesser areal extent in recent decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]