Water Cycle Extremes: Droughts and Pluvials

This visualization shows extremes of the water cycle — droughts and pluvials — over a twenty-year period (2002-2021) based on observations from the GRACE and GRACE-FO satellites. Dry events are shown as red spheres and wet events as blue spheres, with earlier years being shown as lighter shades and later years as darker shades. The volume of the sphere is proportional to the intensity of the event, a quantity measured in cubic kilometer months. A total of 1,056 extreme wet and dry events appear over the course of the visualization. The plots at the bottom of the figure show that the total intensity of extreme events increased as global temperatures increased. The most intense event was a 2019 pluvial (excessive, persistent rain) in central Africa.

This is a version of the previous visualization in vertical format. This visualization shows extremes of the water cycle — droughts and pluvials — over a twenty-year period (2002-2021) based on observations from the GRACE and GRACE-FO satellites. Dry events are shown as red spheres and wet events as blue spheres, with earlier years being shown as lighter shades and later years as darker shades. The volume of the sphere is proportional to the intensity of the event, a quantity measured in cubic kilometer months. A total of 1,056 extreme wet and dry events appear over the course of the visualization. The plots at the bottom of the figure show that the total intensity of extreme events increased as global temperatures increased. The most intense event was a 2019 pluvial (excessive, persistent rain) in central Africa.