Drylands cover 40% of the global terrestrial surface and provide important ecosystem services. While drylands as a whole are expected to increase in distribution and aridity in coming decades, temperature and precipitation forecasts vary by latitude and geographic region suggesting different trajectories for tropical, subtropical, and temperate drylands. Uncertainty in the future of tropical and subtropical drylands is well constrained, whereas soil moisture and ecological droughts, which drive vegetation productivity and composition, remain poorly understood in temperate drylands. Here we show that, over the 21st century, temperate drylands may contract by a third, primarily converting to subtropical drylands, and that deep soil layers will be increasingly dry during the growing season. These changes imply major shifts in vegetation and ecosystem service delivery. Our results illustrate the importance of appropriate drought measures and, as the first global study to focus on temperate drylands, highlight a distinct fate for these highly-populated areas. The data are outputs from the SOILWAT ecohydrological model, which was applied in a grid over 6 temperate drylands across the globe (South America, Southern Africa, Eastern Asia, Western and Central Asia, Western Mediterranean basin, and North America. Simulations were conducted for two time periods: 1980-2010 and 2069-2099.

These data represent simulated soil temperature and moisture conditions for current climate, and for future climate represented by all available climate models at two time periods during the 21st century. These data were used to: 1) quantify the direction and magnitude of expected changes in several measures of soil temperature and soil moisture, including the key variables used to distinguish the regimes used in the R and R categories; 2) assess how these changes will impact the geographic distribution of soil temperature and moisture regimes; and 3) explore the implications for using R and R categories for estimating future ecosystem resilience and resistance.

These data represent simulated soil temperature and moisture conditions for current climate, and for future climate represented by all available climate models at two time periods during the 21st century. These data were used to: 1) quantify the direction and magnitude of expected changes in several measures of soil temperature and soil moisture, including the key variables used to distinguish the regimes used in the R and R categories; 2) assess how these changes will impact the geographic distribution of soil temperature and moisture regimes; and 3) explore the implications for using R and R categories for estimating future ecosystem resilience and resistance.

These data represent simulated ecological drought conditions for current climate, and for future climate represented by all available climate models at two time periods during the 21st century. These data were used to: 1) describe geographic patterns in ecological drought under historical climate conditions, 2) quantify the direction and magnitude of change in ecological drought, 3) identify areas and ecological drought metrics with projected changes that are robust across climate models, defined as drought metrics and locations where >90% of climate models agree in the direction of change.

This dataset contains global dryland literature abstracts from over the last 75 years (8218 articles) to identify areas in arid ecology that are well studied and topics that are emerging.

These data were compiled using a new multivariate matching algorithm that transfers simulated soil moisture conditions (Bradford et al. 2020) from an original 10-km resolution to a 30-arcsec spatial resolution. Also, these data are a supplement to a previously published journal article (Bradford et al., 2020) and USGS data release (Bradford and Schlaepfer, 2020). The objectives of our study were to (1) characterize geographic patterns in ecological drought under historical climate, (2) quantify the direction and magnitude of projected responses in ecological drought under climate change, (3) identify areas and drought metrics with projected changes that are robust across climate models for a representative set of climate scenarios. These data represent geographic patterns in simulated ecological drought metrics based on SOILWAT2 simulations under climate conditions representing historical (current) time period (1980-2010) and two future projected time periods (2020-2050, d40yrs) and (2070-2100, d90yrs) for two representative concentration pathways (RCP4.5, RCP8.5) as medians across simulation runs based on output from each of the available downscaled global circulation models that participated in CMIP5 (RCP4.5, 37 GCMs; RCP8.5, 35 GCMs; Maurer et al. 2007). Additional information about the setup of SOILWAT2 simulation experiments can be found in Bradford et al. 2020. These data were created in 2020 and 2021 for the area of the sagebrush region in the western North America. These data were created by a collaborative research project between the U.S. Geological Survey and Yale University. These data can be used with the high-resolution matching algorithm (Renne et al., 202X), within the scope of Bradford et al. 2020, and as defined by the study. These data may also be used to evaluate the potential impact of changing climate conditions on robust ecological drought metrics within the scope defined by the study.

These data were compiled as a supplement to a previously published journal article (Bradford et al., 2019), that employed a ecosystem water balance model to characterize current and future patterns in soil temperature and moisture conditions in dryland areas of western North America. Also, these data are associated with a published USGS data release (Bradford and Schlaepfer, 2019). The objectives of our study were to (1) characterize current and future patterns in soil temperature and moisture conditions in dryland areas of western North America, (2) evaluate the impact of these changes on estimation of resilience and resistance among a representative set of climate scenarios. These data represent geographic patterns in simulated soil temperature and soil moisture conditions and underlying variables based on SOILWAT2 simulations under climate conditions representing historical (current) time period (1980-2010) and two future projected time periods (2020-2050, d40yrs) and (2070-2100, d90yrs) for two representative concentration pathways (RCP4.5, RCP8.5) as medians across simulation runs based on output from each of the available downscaled global circulation models that participated in CMIP5 (RCP4.5, 37 GCMs; RCP8.5, 35 GCMs; Maurer et al. 2007). Additional information about the SOILWAT2 simulation experiments can be found in Bradford et al. 2019. These data were created in 2018, 2019, and 2021 for the area of the sagebrush region in the western North America. These data were created by a collaborative research project between the U.S. Geological Survey, Marshall University and Yale University. These data can be used with the high-resolution matching as defined by Renne et al. (in prep.), and within the scope of Bradford et al. 2019. These data may also be used to evaluate the potential impact of changing climate conditions on geographic patterns in simulated soil temperature and soil moisture conditions.

These NetCDF data were compiled to investigate how rangelands in the western U.S. are limited by access to water. As a result, these ecosystems may be especially vulnerable to changes in water availability and drought as a result of climate change. This project utilized an ecosystem water balance model to quantify spatial and temporal patterns of rangeland ecological drought conditions under historical and future climate conditions. Water balance results were used to estimate several metrics that describe the seasonal timing and amount of moisture available for plant utilization in western rangelands. These data represent different aspects of water availability and drought. They are based on 1/16-degree gridded simulations using the SOILWAT2 ecosystem water balance model (Schlaepfer et al. 2021) for areas of the western USA where the models represent vegetation structure and ecohydrological upland processes under historical and future condition, i.e., drylands where aridity index (AI) = ratio of annual precipitation amount to annual potential evapotranspiration, is less than 0.65 excluding the warm-moist portion (areas where mean monthly temperature > 4 C and April-June precipitation > 75 mm). The temporal coverage of these NetCDF data consist of a historical annual or quarterly times-series over 1971-2010 (simulations driven by daily meteorological inputs from Livneh et al. 2013) and future projected climatologies (means across years) over 2021-2060 and 2061-2100 using downscaled output from 11 climate models that participated in CMIP5 experiment RCP4.5 (representative concentration pathway). The 11 climate models include: CanESM2, CESM1-CAM5, CSIRO-Mk3-6-0, CNRM-CM5, FGOALS-g2, FGOALS-s2, GISS-E2-R, HadGEM2-ES, inmcm4, IPSL-CM5A-MR, MIROC-ESM (downscaled for North America and obtained from the “Downscaled CMIP3 and CMIP5 Climate and Hydrology Projects” archive; Maurer et al. 2007). Soil properties were derived from the ISRIC WISE30sec dataset (Batjes 2016). To capture the spread across SOILWAT2 simulation runs based on the 11 GCMs for each future time period and RCP, we provide data representing the gridcell-wise median, low (2nd lowest ranked value), high (2nd largest ranked value), and robustness (number of runs that agree in the direction of change between the future projected median and historical conditions). These data were created by the U.S. Geological Survey.

These NetCDF data were compiled to investigate how rangelands in the western U.S. are limited by access to water. As a result, these ecosystems may be especially vulnerable to changes in water availability and drought as a result of climate change. This project utilized an ecosystem water balance model to quantify spatial and temporal patterns of rangeland ecological drought conditions under historical and future climate conditions. Water balance results were used to estimate several metrics that describe the seasonal timing and amount of moisture available for plant utilization in western rangelands. These data represent different aspects of water availability and drought. They are based on 1/16-degree gridded simulations using the SOILWAT2 ecosystem water balance model (Schlaepfer et al. 2021) for areas of the western USA where the models represent vegetation structure and ecohydrological upland processes under historical and future condition, i.e., drylands where aridity index (AI) = ratio of annual precipitation amount to annual potential evapotranspiration, is less than 0.65 excluding the warm-moist portion (areas where mean monthly temperature > 4 C and April-June precipitation > 75 mm). The temporal coverage of these NetCDF data consist of a historical annual or quarterly times-series over 1971-2010 (simulations driven by daily meteorological inputs from Livneh et al. 2013) and future projected climatologies (means across years) over 2021-2060 and 2061-2100 using downscaled output from 11 climate models that participated in CMIP5 experiment RCP4.5 (representative concentration pathway). The 11 climate models include: CanESM2, CESM1-CAM5, CSIRO-Mk3-6-0, CNRM-CM5, FGOALS-g2, FGOALS-s2, GISS-E2-R, HadGEM2-ES, inmcm4, IPSL-CM5A-MR, MIROC-ESM (downscaled for North America and obtained from the “Downscaled CMIP3 and CMIP5 Climate and Hydrology Projects” archive; Maurer et al. 2007). Soil properties were derived from the ISRIC WISE30sec dataset (Batjes 2016). To capture the spread across SOILWAT2 simulation runs based on the 11 GCMs for each future time period and RCP, we provide data representing the gridcell-wise median, low (2nd lowest ranked value), high (2nd largest ranked value), and robustness (number of runs that agree in the direction of change between the future projected median and historical conditions). These data were created by the U.S. Geological Survey.