The California drought of 2012–2016 was a record‐breaking event with extensive social, political, and economic repercussions. The impacts were widespread and exposed the difficulty in preparing for the effects of prolonged dry conditions. Although the lessons from this drought drove important changes to state law and policy, there is little doubt that climate change will only exacerbate future droughts. To understand the character of future drought, this paper examines this recent drought period retrospectively and prospectively, that is, as it occurred historically and if similar dynamical conditions to the historical period were to arise 30 years later (2042–2046) subject to the effects of climate change. Simulations were conducted using the Weather Research and Forecasting model using the pseudo global warming method. The simulated historical and future droughts are contrasted in terms of temperature, precipitation, snowpack, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and forest health. Overall, the midcentury drought is observed to be significantly worse, with many more extreme heat days, record‐low snowpack, increased soil drying, and record‐high forest mortality. With these findings in mind, the data sets developed in this study provide a means to structure future drought planning around a drought scenario that is realistic and modeled after a memorable historical analog.

中文翻译：

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加州未来的干旱：2012-2017 年特殊情况的中世纪重现

2012 年至 2016 年的加州干旱是创纪录的事件，产生了广泛的社会、政治和经济影响。影响范围广泛，暴露了为长期干旱条件的影响做好准备的困难。尽管这次干旱的教训促使各州法律和政策发生了重大变化，但毫无疑问，气候变化只会加剧未来的干旱。为了了解未来干旱的特征，本文回顾性和前瞻性地研究了最近的干旱时期，即历史上发生的干旱，以及30年后（2042-2046年）是否会出现与历史时期类似的动态条件，并受到影响气候变化。使用伪全球变暖方法的天气研究和预报模型进行了模拟。模拟的历史和未来干旱在温度、降水、积雪、土壤湿度、蒸散和森林健康方面进行对比。总体而言，本世纪中叶的干旱情况明显更加严重，极端炎热天气增多，积雪创历史新低，土壤干燥加剧，森林死亡率创历史新高。考虑到这些发现，本研究中开发的数据集提供了一种围绕干旱情景构建未来干旱规划的方法，该情景是现实的，并根据令人难忘的历史模拟进行建模。