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Multifold increase in heat extremes by 2040
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/multifold-increase-in-heat-extremes-by-2040[font face=Serif][font size=5]Multifold increase in heat extremes by 2040[/font]
[font size=4]08/15/2013 - Extremes such as the severe heat wave last year in the US or the one 2010 in Russia are likely to be seen much more often in the near future. A few decades ago, they were practically absent. Today, due to man-made climate change monthly heat extremes in summer are already observed on 5 percent of the land area. This is projected to double by 2020 and quadruple by 2040, according to a study by scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). A further increase of heat extremes in the second half of our century could be stopped if global greenhouse-gas emissions would be reduced substantially.[/font]
[font size=3]“In many regions, the coldest summer months by the end of the century will be hotter than the hottest experienced today – that’s what our calculations show for a scenario of unabated climate change,” says Dim Coumou of PIK. “We would enter a new climatic regime.” The scientists focus on heat waves that exceed the usual natural variability of summer month temperatures in a given region by a large margin, namely so called 3-sigma events. These are periods of several weeks that are three standard deviations warmer than the normal local climate – often resulting in harvest losses, forest fires, and additional deaths in heat-struck cities.
Information for developing short-term adaptation measures
Such heat extremes might cover 85 percent of the global land area in summer by 2100, if CO[font size="1"]2[/font] continues to be emitted as it is today, the study shows. In addition to this, even hotter extremes that are virtually non-existent today would affect 60 percent of the global land area.
While climate change mitigation could prevent this, the projected increase up to mid-century is expected to happen regardless of the emissions scenario. “There’re already so much greenhouse-gases in the atmosphere today that the near-term increase of heat extremes seems to be almost inevitable,” Coumou says. This is important information for developing adaptation measures in the affected sectors.
…[/font][/font]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034018[font size=4]08/15/2013 - Extremes such as the severe heat wave last year in the US or the one 2010 in Russia are likely to be seen much more often in the near future. A few decades ago, they were practically absent. Today, due to man-made climate change monthly heat extremes in summer are already observed on 5 percent of the land area. This is projected to double by 2020 and quadruple by 2040, according to a study by scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). A further increase of heat extremes in the second half of our century could be stopped if global greenhouse-gas emissions would be reduced substantially.[/font]
[font size=3]“In many regions, the coldest summer months by the end of the century will be hotter than the hottest experienced today – that’s what our calculations show for a scenario of unabated climate change,” says Dim Coumou of PIK. “We would enter a new climatic regime.” The scientists focus on heat waves that exceed the usual natural variability of summer month temperatures in a given region by a large margin, namely so called 3-sigma events. These are periods of several weeks that are three standard deviations warmer than the normal local climate – often resulting in harvest losses, forest fires, and additional deaths in heat-struck cities.
Information for developing short-term adaptation measures
Such heat extremes might cover 85 percent of the global land area in summer by 2100, if CO[font size="1"]2[/font] continues to be emitted as it is today, the study shows. In addition to this, even hotter extremes that are virtually non-existent today would affect 60 percent of the global land area.
While climate change mitigation could prevent this, the projected increase up to mid-century is expected to happen regardless of the emissions scenario. “There’re already so much greenhouse-gases in the atmosphere today that the near-term increase of heat extremes seems to be almost inevitable,” Coumou says. This is important information for developing adaptation measures in the affected sectors.
…[/font][/font]
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