Modern anthropogenic drought in Central Brazil unprecedented during last 700 years

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 1728 - 13
• Main Authors: Stríkis, Nicolas Misailidis, Buarque, Plácido Fabrício Silva Melo, Cruz, Francisco William, Bernal, Juan Pablo, Vuille, Mathias, Tejedor, Ernesto, Santos, Matheus Simões, Shimizu, Marília Harumi, Ampuero, Angela, Du, Wenjing, Sampaio, Gilvan, Sales, Hamilton dos Reis, Campos, José Leandro, Kayano, Mary Toshie, Apaèstegui, James, Fu, Roger R., Cheng, Hai, Edwards, R. Lawrence, Mayta, Victor Chavez, Francischini, Danielle da Silva, Arruda, Marco Aurélio Zezzi, Novello, Valdir Felipe
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 26.02.2024; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 140/58; 704/106/413; 704/106/694; 704/172; 704/172/169; 704/445/209; Anthropogenic factors; Aridity; Climate variability; Drought; Emissions; Greenhouse effect; Greenhouse gases; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Precipitation; Savannahs; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Seasonal variations; Ventilation; Brazil
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-45469-8

A better understanding of the relative roles of internal climate variability and external contributions, from both natural (solar, volcanic) and anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing, is important to better project future hydrologic changes. Changes in the evaporative demand play a central role in this context, particularly in tropical areas characterized by high precipitation seasonality, such as the tropical savannah and semi-desertic biomes. Here we present a set of geochemical proxies in speleothems from a well-ventilated cave located in central-eastern Brazil which shows that the evaporative demand is no longer being met by precipitation, leading to a hydrological deficit. A marked change in the hydrologic balance in central-eastern Brazil, caused by a severe warming trend, can be identified, starting in the 1970s. Our findings show that the current aridity has no analog over the last 720 years. A detection and attribution study indicates that this trend is mostly driven by anthropogenic forcing and cannot be explained by natural factors alone. These results reinforce the premise of a severe long-term drought in the subtropics of eastern South America that will likely be further exacerbated in the future given its apparent connection to increased greenhouse gas emissions. Speleothems from the Savanna region in Brazil documents the occurrence of an unprecedented long-term drought driven by anthropogenic forcing. Staring in the 1970´s the current drought is the most severe that has struck the region in the past 700 years.