Drought 2002 in Colorado: An Unprecedented Drought or a Routine Drought?
Drought 2002 in Colorado: An Unprecedented Drought or a Routine Drought?
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2002 年科罗拉多州干旱：史无前例的干旱还是例行干旱？
DOI：
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发表时间：
2005
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
K. Wolter
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
R. Pielke;N. Doesken;Odilia Bliss;Tara Green;C. Chaffin;J. Salas;C. Woodhouse;J. Lukas;K. Wolter
2002年科罗拉多的干旱被媒体和公众人物报道，甚至被一个国家干旱监测机构报道为异常严重的干旱。在本文中，我们研究这种说法的证据。我们的研究表明，虽然水资源短缺的影响在任何地方都是例外，但在该州的大部分地区，观察到的降水量不足。造成这种差异的一个可能原因是长期以来供水和用水需求之间的不平衡。在一定的供水水平下，随着水需求量的增加，水短缺的情况会加剧。令人清醒的结论是，科罗拉多今天比过去在类似降水不足的情况下更容易受到干旱的影响。
The 2002 drought in Colorado was reported by the media and by public figures, and even by a national drought-monitoring agency, as an exceptionally severe drought. In this paper we examine evidence for this claim. Our study shows that, while the impacts of water shortages were exceptional everywhere, the observed precipitation deficit was less than extreme over a good fraction of the state. A likely explanation of this discrepancy is the imbalance between water supply and water demand over time. For a given level of water supply, water shortages become intensified as water demands increase over time. The sobering conclusion is that Colorado is more vulnerable to drought today than under similar precipitation deficits in the past.