Ongoing and future hydroclimatic changes have large environmental and societal impacts. In terrestrial ecosystems, these changes are usually described with the terms ‘wetter’ and ‘drier’, which refer to the change in the quantity and/or presence of water, either as water fluxes or stocks. We conducted a literature review of almost 500 recent climate change studies to quantitatively investigate the consistency of the use of these terms across disciplines, regarding the hydroclimatic variables they are related to. We found that although precipitation is prevalently used to describe ‘wetter’ and ‘drier’ conditions, many other variables are also used to refer to changes in water availability between research fields, pointing to a varied perspective on the use of these terms. Some studies do not define the terms at all. In order to facilitate meta-analyses across disciplines, we therefore highlight the need to explicitly state which hydroclimatic variables authors are referring to. In this way, we hope that the terms ‘wetter’ and ‘drier’ used in scientific studies are easier to relate to hydroclimatic processes, which should facilitate the application by authorities and policy makers.

中文翻译：

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呼吁与气候变化研究中的“更好”和“更干燥”保持一致

持续的和未来的气候变化将对环境和社会产生重大影响。在陆地生态系统中，这些变化通常用术语“更湿”和“更干燥”来描述，这是指水的数量和/或存在量的变化，以水通量或水量的形式出现。我们对近500项最近的气候变化研究进行了文献综述，以定量研究各个学科使用这些术语所涉及的水文气候变量的一致性。我们发现，虽然降水普遍用于描述“更干燥”和“更干燥”的条件，但许多其他变量也被用来指代研究领域之间水资源的变化，从而对这些术语的使用提出了不同的看法。一些研究根本没有定义术语。为了促进跨学科的荟萃分析，因此，我们强调需要明确说明作者所指的水文气候变量。通过这种方式，我们希望科学研究中使用的“更好”和“更干燥”这两个术语更易于与水文气候过程联系起来，这应该有助于当局和政策制定者的应用。