ESA CCI Research Fellowship: Bethan Harris

Project: Subseasonal-to-seasonal drought and heatwave evolution via land-atmosphere interactions (SUBDROUGHT)

Subseasonal-to-seasonal drought and heatwave evolution via land-atmosphere interactions (SUBDROUGHT)

Fellowship project summary:

Flash droughts, which develop on subseasonal-to-seasonal timescales (2 weeks–2 months), are increasing in frequency in many regions of the world. Forecasting these events is critical for the management of agricultural and water resource systems. Subseasonal-to-seasonal land-atmosphere interactions influence the intensification and propagation of droughts and associated heatwaves, but these processes are not yet fully understood. This fellowship will use global daily Earth Observation datasets—including ESA CCI Soil Moisture and Land Surface Temperature—to analyse land-atmosphere feedbacks during flash drought development and identify land surface sources of predictability for subseasonal-to-seasonal drought and heatwave forecasting. This work will also include an evaluation of land-atmosphere coupled variability in CMIP6 models during flash drought events, to investigate how the strength of this coupling affects inter-model differences in drought and heatwave statistics under future climate scenarios.

Slide for a recent lightening talk, delivered at the ESA Climate Change Colocation meeting November 2023 is available.

Research fellow: Dr Bethan Harris

Host Institution: UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology