Trends in the Frequency of Water and Heat Stress in Mid-Latitude North America since 1980

The water-energy balance of many mid-latitude watersheds has been changing in recent decades due to global warming. These changes manifest themselves over both long timescales (e.g., hydrologic drought) and short agricultural may be ameliorated or exacerbated by vegetative response. We apply a Budyko framework assess short-term response long-term trends water heat stress (HS) across North America. Using high-resolution meteorological data streamflow records, we calculate the frequency HS every year since 1980 for gaged watershed with adequate (n = 1528). find that become more frequent most western US, New England, southeastern Canada. However, less Midwest relatively humid eastern US. By assessing relationship between proximate forcing variables (annual PPT, annual streamflow, minimum maximum daily temperatures, actual evapotranspiration, potential evapotranspiration), these are primarily driven forcings rather than Finally, contextualize our findings within framework, which assumes landscape equilibrium its climate, implication only likely realized after local vegetation adapted new norms.