Journal of Climate · 2004 · 1.4K citations · 9 references
Natural SciencesEarth SciencesEnvironmental SciencesClimate ScienceClimatologySpatial StatisticsDroughtDrought ModelingDrought MonitoringPrecipitation ExtremesDrought CharacterizationDrought Severity AnalysisDrought Severity EstimationPalmer Drought Severity IndexRegional Drought AnalysisSpatial Drought AnalysisSpatial Drought MappingSpatial Drought Monitoring
The Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) has been used for more than 30 years to quantify the long-term drought conditions for a given location and time. However, a common critique of the PDSI is that the behavior of the index at various locations is inconsistent, making spatial comparisons of PDSI values difficult, if not meaningless. A self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (SC-PDSI) is presented and evaluated. The SC-PDSI automatically calibrates the behavior of the index at any location by replacing empirical constants in the index computation with dynamically calculated values. An evaluation of the SC-PDSI at 761 sites within Nebraska,
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