Articles | Volume 21, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-409-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-409-2017
Research article
 | 
24 Jan 2017
Research article |  | 24 Jan 2017

Land surface albedo and vegetation feedbacks enhanced the millennium drought in south-east Australia

Jason P. Evans, Xianhong Meng, and Matthew F. McCabe

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Interactive discussion

Status: closed
Status: closed
AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment
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Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision
ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by Editor and Referees) (26 Nov 2016) by Marc Bierkens
AR by Jason Evans on behalf of the Authors (30 Nov 2016)  Author's response    Manuscript
ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (08 Dec 2016) by Marc Bierkens
RR by Adriaan J. (Ryan) Teuling (08 Dec 2016)
RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (13 Dec 2016)
ED: Publish as is (24 Dec 2016) by Marc Bierkens
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Short summary
This work demonstrates that changes in surface albedo and vegetation, caused by the millennium drought in south-east Australia, affected the atmosphere in a way that decreased precipitation further. This land–surface feedback increased the severity of the drought by 10 %. This suggests that climate models need to simulate changes in surface characteristics (other than soil moisture) in response to a developing drought if they are to capture this kind of multi-year drought.