Changes in moisture sources contributed to the onset and development of the 2017-2019 southeast Australian drought

Abstract

In 2017-2019 southeast Australia experienced one of its most severe droughts since 1900. Rainfall over the region encompassing the Murray-Darling Basin was consistently below average for three consecutive cool seasons, an unprecedented event on record. A strong positive Indian Ocean Dipole event has been previously suggested to have intensified the conditions of the drought in 2019, however the state of the climate drivers cannot fully explain the onset and development of this drought. In this study, we adopt a different approach to investigate processes other than remote climate drivers that may have triggered the drought. Using a Lagrangian model to identify moisture sources to the Murray Darling Basin, we show that local processes were crucial in explaining the onset and development of the drought. We identify the oceanic and terrestrial sources of atmospheric moisture over the Murray Darling Basin and show for the first time a significant decline in rainfall moisture supply from the Tasman Sea in 2017 and 2018. We further show that anomalous atmospheric circulation transported the expected moisture northward toward the Maritime Continent. Our results provide an explanation for the moisture and rainfall deficit that caused the 2017-19 southeast Australian drought. Understanding the processes that led to the 2017-2019 drought is an important step towards improved predictions and planning for future multi-year droughts in Australia.