Data for: Anthropogenic climate change has reduced drought recovery probabilities across the western US

During drought, resource managers want to know when the drought will end to make informed management decisions. However, as anthropogenic climate change has intensified drought conditions, we hypothesize it has affected drought recovery. Here, we leverage monthly self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index data across the western US derived from observations and climate models, and quantify the probability of drought recovery following severe drought. We find that the probability of drought recovery is ~25-50% lower in recent decades (2000-2021) than in the historical record (1901-1980), with at least one-third of the reduced recovery probability attributable to anthropogenic climate change. Climate model ensembles show reduced recovery probabilities in the contemporary era (2000-2040), primarily due to increased evaporative demand in non-winter months, resulting in an additional 1-4 months for droughts to recover compared with the historical record. These findings suggest climate ch..., Processed data for the manuscript, \"Anthropogenic climate change has reduced drought recovery probabilities across the western US.\" Processed data are based on climate model ensembles from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) (https://pcmdi.llnl.gov/CMIP6/), and observational data from Williams et al. (2020) (https://doi.org/10.25921/8pt9-hz08). Observational and GCM outputs were extracted to Hydrologic Unit Code Level 2 (HUC2) watersheds, downloaded from the National Map Downloader (https://apps.nationalmap.gov/downloader/#/). , , # Data for: Anthropogenic climate change has reduced drought recovery probabilities across the western US

This repository contains observational (actual and counterfactual), experimental (actual and counterfactual), and model-based precipitation (pr), minimum and maximum temperature (Tmin, Tmax), reference evapotranspiration (ETo), and self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI)  for each macro-scale watershed in the western US. 

Model-based monthly pr, Tmin, Tmax, windspeed, SH, and downward shortwave radiation were retrieved from 130 ensemble members across 23 GCMs participating in CMIP6. Monthly ETo calculated following the ASCE Penman-Monteith approach, from which scPDSI was derived. 

Observational pr, Tmin, Tmax, windspeed, actual vapor pressure, and downward shortwave radiation were retrieved from Williams et al. (2020), extended through 2023. SH was derived, then monthly ETo and scPDSI calculated (as in above). Counterfactual observational data were created by su...