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- Title
High Sensitivity of Compound Drought and Heatwave Events to Global Warming in the Future.
- Authors
Zhang, Qin; She, Dunxian; Zhang, Liping; Wang, Gangsheng; Chen, Jie; Hao, Zengchao
- Abstract
Compound drought and heatwave (CDHW) events have received considerable attention in recent years due to their devastating effects on human society and ecosystem. In this study, we systematically investigated the changes of CDHW events in multi‐spatiotemporal scales for historical period (1951–2014) and four future scenarios (2020–2100) (SSP1‐2.6, SSP2‐4.5, SSP3‐7.0, and SSP5‐8.5) over global land by using Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models. The responses of the CDHW events to the changes of maximum air temperature and the climatic water balance variable are also examined. The results show that the multi‐model ensembles project a significant increasing trend in CDHW characteristics over almost all global lands under SSP2‐4.5, SSP3‐7.0, and SSP5‐8.5, especially across northern North‐America, Caribbean, Mediterranean and Russian‐Arctic, there is a stronger increasing trend. A significantly increasing CDHW risk will occur across most global land for the medium to long term future without aggressive adaptation and mitigation strategies. The results of path analysis suggest that temperature is the dominant factor influencing CDHW events. Additionally, higher sensitivity of CDHW events to global warming will occur in the future. Particularly, each 1°C global warming increases the duration of the CDHW events by 3 days in the historical period, but by about 10 days in the future period. Overall, this study improves our understanding in the projection of CDHW events and the impacts of climate drivers to the CDHW events under various future scenarios, which could provide supports about the risk assessment, adaptation and mitigation strategies under climate change. Plain Language Summary: Compound drought and heatwave (CDHW) events (co‐occurring hot and dry extremes) always cause severe damages to human society and natural system, often beyond separate impacts from heatwaves and droughts. Understanding the changes of CDHW events under global warming can help to manage the risks of associated disasters and advance climate change adaptation. Therefore, we systematically investigated the future changes of CDHW events (characterized by duration, severity, and magnitude) and the relationship between CDHW characteristics and the relevant climate factors in multi‐spatiotemporal scales using the state‐of‐the‐art climate simulations. Here we show that future will witness a strong increase in CDHW events. A significantly increasing CDHW risk will occur across most global land for the medium to long term future without aggressive adaptation and mitigation strategies. We further find global temperature rise is the main reason for the future increase in CDHW events. In addition, compared with the historical period, higher sensitivity of CDHW events to global warming over most global land will occur in the future. These tell us that measures to limit the temperature increase are urgently needed to survive and thrive. Key Points: There is a significantly increasing trend for compound drought and heatwave characteristics over almost global land in the futureThe increasing temperature dominates the increase of compound drought and heatwave eventsFuture will witness higher sensitivity of compound drought and heatwave events to global warming over almost all global land
- Subjects
NORTH America; GLOBAL warming; ATMOSPHERIC temperature; DROUGHTS; PATH analysis (Statistics); CLIMATE change; HEAT waves (Meteorology); WATER temperature
- Publication
Earth's Future, 2022, Vol 10, Issue 11, p1
- ISSN
2328-4277
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1029/2022EF002833