Ecosystems have increasingly been subject to the stress of heavy drought under global warming. To quantify its impacts, a drought index that can sensitively depict the reaction of vegetation to drought evolution is necessary at a biological time scale. The difference between actual and potential evapotranspiration, technically termed a standardized evapotranspiration deficit drought index (SEDI), can more sensitively capture the biological changes of ecosystems in response to the dynamics of drought intensity, compared with indices based on precipitation and temperature.
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Source: Phys.org