Twenty-first century hydroclimate: A continually changing baseline, with more frequent extremes

Abstract

Significance Twenty-first century trends in hydroclimate are so large that future average conditions will, in most cases, fall into the range of what we would today consider extreme drought or pluvial states. Using large climate model ensembles, we remove the background trend and find that the risk of droughts and pluvials relative to that (changing) baseline is fairly similar to the 20th century risk. By continually adapting to long-term background changes, these risks could therefore perhaps be minimized. However, increases in the frequency of extremely wet and dry years are still present even after removing the trend, indicating that sustainably managing hydroclimate-driven risks in a warmer world will face increasingly difficult challenges.