A paleoclimatic context for the drought of 1999-2001 in the northern Great Plains of North America
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4701922 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David J Sauchyn, David Sauchyn (0000-0003-1607-2028, University of Regina, corresponding author), Jennifer Stroich (University of Regina, corresponding author), Antoine Beriault, Antoine Lucien Beriault (University of Regina, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2003 |
| Volume | 169 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 158-167 |
| Publication date | 2003-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Geographical Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-7398 • E-ISSN: 1475-4959 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1475-4959.05003 |
| OpenAlex | W2067372128 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 16 |
The least annual precipitation in the western interior of North America occurs in the northern Great Plains, including an area that encompasses parts of south-eastern Alberta, south-western Saskatchewan and eastern Montana. During 1999-2001, most climate stations in this region had record low precipitation. This paper examines this three-year drought in the context of historical climate records from Medicine Hat, Alberta and Havre, Montana and summer (June-July) and annual (August-July) precipitation reconstructed from standardized tree-ring widths (residual chronologies) from Pinus contorta (lodgepole pine) sampled in the Cypress Hills of Alberta and Saskatchewan and the Bears Paw Mountains of north-central Montana. Drought is operationally defined as precipitation in the lower 10th and 20th percentiles. Plots of reconstructed precipitation and cumulative departure from median values indicate a shift in climate variability prior to the twentieth century, when EuroCanadians settled in this region. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are characterized by sustained periods of progressively wetter and drier conditions, including prolonged drought. Various archival sources document the significant impacts of these prolonged droughts. While drought was frequent in the twentieth century, it tended to be of short duration and the impacts also were ameliorated by intervening periods of relatively high precipitation. Increasing aridity in response to global warming could expose a larger area of the northern Great Plains to the impacts of drought
Archaeology · Climate change · Climatology · Context (archaeology · Dendrochronology · Geography · Physical geography · Precipitation · Geology · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research · Oceanography · Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics · Tree-ring climate responses
A Direct Comparison of Sympatric High-Latitude Pinus contorta and Picea albertiana Ring-Width Chronologies
Reconstruction of Holocene lake level from diatoms, chrysophytes and organic matter in a drainage lake from the Experimental Lakes Area (northwestern Ontario, Canada)
Forcing of hydroclimatic variability in the northwestern Great Plains since AD 1406
Household access to capital and its effects on drought adaptation and migration
Soil and its influence on rural drought migration
Spatial and temporal variation in vulnerability of crop production to drought in southern Alberta
S ocial capital and drought‐migrant integration in 1930s Saskatchewan
Dry times
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,44 |
| Citation span | 2008 - 2020 (13) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |