Excess water availability in northern mid-high latitudes contiguously migrated from ocean under climate change

Guan, Y. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0048-6253, Gu, X. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7414-5371, Wang, L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7783-5725, Zhou, T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5829-7279, Xia, J., Jiang, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0756-0169, Slater, L. J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9416-488X, Gimeno, L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0778-3605, Pokhrel, Y. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1367-216X, Villarini, G. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9566-2370, Kug, J.-S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2251-2579, Son, S.-W. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2982-9501, Allan, R. P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0264-9447, Li, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9288-3415, Gan, T. Y. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5196-2846, Liu, Y. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5250-0184, Kong, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1836-8172, Zhang, X. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1017-742X and Cui, X. (2025) Excess water availability in northern mid-high latitudes contiguously migrated from ocean under climate change. Science Advances, 11 (33). eadv0282. ISSN 2375-2548 doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adv0282

Abstract/Summary

Terrestrial water availability sustains livelihoods, socioeconomic development, and ecosystems. Despite an understanding of contributions of oceanic moisture to terrestrial hydroclimatic extremes, whether surpluses of terrestrial water availability migrate directly and contiguously from the ocean and the influence of climate change on this process remain unclear. Here, we use a coherent feature-tracking method to identify ocean-to-land water availability surpluses (OWASs), characterized by spatiotemporally contiguous migration of excess atmospheric freshwater (precipitation-minus-evapotranspiration) from ocean to land. Over the past several decades, especially in northern mid-high latitudes (NMHL; above 48°N), OWASs have exhibited longer persistence, wider areal extent, and greater intensity than those developed solely over land. These landward migrations are associated with seasonal Atlantic teleconnection and Pacific circulation shift. Under the business-as-usual scenario, these two processes are projected to be enhanced, markedly increasing OWAS characteristics in NMHL driven by thermodynamic atmospheric responses to future warming. Intensified OWASs may not only help alleviate long-term droughts but also have the potential to accentuate pluvial risks.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/124008
Identification Number/DOI	10.1126/sciadv.adv0282
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	American Association for the Advancement of Science
Download/View statistics	View download statistics for this item