edu.ucar.opensky::articles:22171 UCAR/NCAR - Library OpenSky Support PO Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307-3000 opensky@ucar.edu http://opensky.ucar.edu/ homepage pointOfContact 2025-12-25T15:44:31.112781 ISO 19115-2 Geographic Information - Metadata - Part 2: Extensions for Imagery and Gridded Data ISO 19115-2:2009(E) https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d70r9sck https://doi.org/10.5676/DWD_GPCC/MP_M_V5_100 https Related Dataset #1 GPCC Monitoring Product Version 5.0 at 1.0°: Near Real-Time Monthly Land-Surface Precipitation from Rain-Gauges based on SYNOP and CLIMAT Data Anthropogenic influence on the drivers of the Western Cape drought 2015–2017 2018-11-29T00:00:00Z publication https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d70r9sck https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aae9f9 Otto, F. E. L. author Wolski, P. author Lehner, Flavio author Tebaldi, Claudia author van Oldenborgh, G. J. author Hogesteeger, S. author Singh, R. author Holden, P. author Fučkar, N. S. author Odoulami, R. C. author New, M. author UCAR/NCAR - Library publisher In the period 2015-2017, the Western Cape region has suffered from three consecutive years of below average rainfall-leading to a prolonged drought and acute water shortages, most prominently in the city of Cape Town. After testing that the precipitation deficit is the primary driver behind the reduced surface water availability, we undertake a multi-method attribution analysis for the meteorological drought, defined in terms of a deficit in the 3 years running mean precipitation averaged over the Western Cape area. The exact estimate of the return time of the event is sensitive to the number of stations whose data is incorporated in the analysis but the rarity of the event is unquestionable, with a return time of more than a hundred years. Synthesising the results from five different large model ensembles as well as observed data gives a significant increase by a factor of three (95% confidence interval 1.5-6) of such a drought to occur because of anthropogenic climate change. All the model results further suggest that this trend will continue with future global warming. These results are in line with physical understanding of the effect of climate change at these latitudes and highlights that measures to improve Cape Town's resilience to future droughts are an adaptation priority. UCAR/NCAR - Library OpenSky Support PO Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307-3000 opensky@ucar.edu http://opensky.ucar.edu/ homepage pointOfContact PDF Text theme Resource Type 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z publication Copyright 2018 Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing, Inc. None eng geoscientificInformation