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  • Review Article
  • Published:

Hydroclimate volatility on a warming Earth

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 6, pages 35–50 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Hydroclimate volatility refers to sudden, large and/or frequent transitions between very dry and very wet conditions. In this Review, we examine how hydroclimate volatility is anticipated to evolve with anthropogenic warming. Using a metric of ‘hydroclimate whiplash’ based on the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, global-averaged subseasonal (3-month) and interannual (12-month) whiplash have increased by 31–66% and 8–31%, respectively, since the mid-twentieth century. Further increases are anticipated with ongoing warming, including subseasonal increases of 113% and interannual increases of 52% over land areas with 3 °C of warming; these changes are largest at high latitudes and from northern Africa eastward into South Asia. Extensive evidence links these increases primarily to thermodynamics, namely the rising water-vapour-holding capacity and potential evaporative demand of the atmosphere. Increases in hydroclimate volatility will amplify hazards associated with rapid swings between wet and dry states (including flash floods, wildfires, landslides and disease outbreaks), and could accelerate a water management shift towards co-management of drought and flood risks. A clearer understanding of plausible future trajectories of hydroclimate volatility requires expanded focus on the response of atmospheric circulation to regional and global forcings, as well as land–ocean–atmosphere feedbacks, using large ensemble climate model simulations, storm-resolving high-resolution models and emerging machine learning methods.

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Fig. 1: Global hydroclimate whiplash events.
Fig. 2: Historical hydroclimate whiplash frequency trends.
Fig. 3: Projected hydroclimate whiplash trends in a warming climate.
Fig. 4: Temperature, humidity and the VPD.
Fig. 5: Cascading hydroclimate whiplash hazards in a warming climate.

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Data availability

All ERA5 data are publicly available via https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu. NCD20C data are available via https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/d131003/dataaccess. All CESM2-LE data are available via https://www.cesm.ucar.edu/community-projects/lens2/data-sets. Hydroclimate whiplash data can be found via the Zenodo repository at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13381749 (ref. 188).

Code availability

Code used to generate hydroclimate whiplash data can be found via the Zenodo repository at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13381749 (ref. 188).

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Acknowledgements

D.L.S. was supported through a collaboration between UCLA, the NSF National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research and The Nature Conservancy of California. M.B. acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF through the ‘Consecutive drought-flood events in a warming world’ project (ConDF, grant number 200021_214907). This material is based upon work supported by the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, which is a major facility sponsored by the US National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement No. 1852977.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, Davis, CA, USA

    Daniel L. Swain

  2. Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Daniel L. Swain

  3. Capacity Center for Climate and Weather Extremes, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, CO, USA

    Daniel L. Swain & Andreas F. Prein

  4. Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Andreas F. Prein

  5. Management of Complex Systems, University of California, Merced, CA, USA

    John T. Abatzoglou

  6. Division of Hydrologic Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV, USA

    Christine M. Albano

  7. Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Manuela Brunner

  8. WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos, Switzerland

    Manuela Brunner

  9. Climate Change, Extremes and Natural Hazards in Alpine Regions Research Center CERC, Davos, Switzerland

    Manuela Brunner

  10. Doerr School of Sustainability, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Noah S. Diffenbaugh

  11. School of the Environment, Washington State University, Vancouver, WA, USA

    Deepti Singh

  12. Department of Environmental Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, MA, USA

    Christopher B. Skinner

  13. Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA

    Danielle Touma

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Contributions

Conceptualization by D.L.S., A.F.P., J.T.A., C.M.A., M.B., N.S.D., D.S., C.B.S. and D.T. Methodology by D.L.S., A.F.P., J.T.A., C.M.A., M.B., N.S.D., D.S., C.B.S. and D.T. Data acquisition and curation by D.L.S., A.F.P. and J.T.A. Investigation by D.L.S., A.F.P. and J.T.A. Visualization by D.L.S., A.F.P., J.T.A., D.S. and C.B.S. Writing — original draft by D.L.S. Writing — review and editing by D.L.S., A.F.P., J.T.A., C.M.A., M.B., N.S.D., D.S., C.B.S. and D.T. Project administration by D.L.S.

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Swain, D.L., Prein, A.F., Abatzoglou, J.T. et al. Hydroclimate volatility on a warming Earth. Nat Rev Earth Environ 6, 35–50 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00624-z

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