# The "Living Blended Drought Atlas (LBDA)" North American Drought Reconstruction for the last 2000 years
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#               World Data Center for Paleoclimatology, Boulder
#                                   and
#                      NOAA Paleoclimatology Program
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# NOTE: Please cite original publication, online resource and date accessed when using this data.
# If there is no publication information, please cite Investigator, title, online resource and date accessed.
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# Description/Documentation lines begin with #
# Data lines have no #
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# Online_Resource: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/
# Online_Resource: http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/
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# Archive: Climate Reconstructions
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# Parameter_Keywords: ground water
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# Contribution_Date
#    Date: 2015-08-20
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# Title
#    Study_Name: The "Living Blended Drought Atlas (LBDA)" North American Drought Reconstruction for the last 2000 years
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# Investigators
#      Investigators: Cook, E.R.; Seager, R.; Heim, R.R.; Vose, R.S.; Woodhouse, C.
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# Description and Notes
#        Description: A high-resolution North American drought atlas reconstructed from tree rings
#         Provided Keywords: North American drought, tree rings, megadroughts, pluvials, PDSI
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# Publication
# Authors: Cook, E.R., Seager, R., Heim, R.R., Vose, R.S., Herweijer, C., and Woodhouse, C.
# Published_Date_or_Year: 2010
# Published_Title: Megadroughts in North America: Placing IPCC projections of hydroclimatic change in a long-term paleoclimate context
# Journal_Name: Journal of Quaternary Science 
# Volume: 25
# Issue: 1
# Pages: 48-61
# Report Number: 
# DOI: 10.1002/jqs.1303 
# Abstract: IPCC Assessment Report 4 model projections suggest that the subtropical dry zones of the world will both dry and expand poleward in the future due to greenhouse warming. The US Southwest is particularly vulnerable in this regard and model projections indicate a progressive drying there out to the end of the 21st century. At the same time, the USA has been in a state of drought over much of the West for about 10 years now. While severe, this turn of the century drought has not yet clearly exceeded the severity of two exceptional droughts in the 20th century. So while the coincidence between the turn of the century drought and projected drying in the Southwest is cause for concern, it is premature to claim that the model projections are correct. At the same time, great new insights into past drought variability over North America have been made through the development of the North American Drought Atlas from tree rings. Analyses of this drought atlas have revealed past megadroughts of unprecedented duration in the West, largely in the Medieval period about 1000 years ago. A vastly improved Living Blended Drought Atlas (LBDA) for North America now under develop- ment reveals these megadroughts in far greater detail. The LBDA indicates the occurrence of the same Medieval megadroughts in the West and similar-scale megadroughts in the agriculturally and commercially important Mississippi Valley. Possible causes of these megadroughts and their implica- tions for the future are discussed.
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# Funding_Agency
#    Funding_Agency_Name: NOAA Cooperative Institute for Climate Applications Research (CICAR)
#    Grant: NA03OAR4320179, NA08OAR4320754
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# Site Information
# Site_Name: North America
# Location: North America
# Country: USA
# Northernmost_Latitude: 72
# Southernmost_Latitude: 9
# Easternmost_Longitude: -50
# Westernmost_Longitude: -170
# Elevation:
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# Data_Collection
#   Collection_Name: North American Drought Atlas 2010
#   First_Year: 0
#   Last_Year: 2005
#   Time_Unit: AD
#   Core_Length: 
#   Notes: 
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# Chronology: 
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# Variables
# Data variables follow that are preceded by "##" in columns one and two.
# Variables list, one per line, shortname-tab-longname components (9 components: what, material, error, units, seasonality, archive, detail, method, C or N for Character or Numeric data)
## age_AD	age,,,years AD,,,,,N
## PDSI_JJA	palmer drought severity index,,, ,Jun-Aug,climate reconstructions,,,N
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# Data
# Data lines follow (have no #)
# Data line format - tab-delimited text, variable short name as header
# Missing Value: 
Files available in this study:
LBDA_PMDI_Instrumental_data.txt -- Instrumental PMDI data used for calibration/verification
LBDA_PMDI_Instrumental_metadata.txt -- Instrumental PMDI metadata - one line per grid point data set
LBDA_PMDI_JJA_Recons_cal/ver_stats.txt -- Reconstructed PMDI calibration/verification statistics
LBDA_PMDI_JJA_Recons.txt Reconstructed PMDI -- one column per grid point