Changes in Extremely Hot Summers over the Global Land Area under Various Warming Targets

PLoS One. 2015 Jun 19;10(6):e0130660. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0130660. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

Summer temperature extremes over the global land area were investigated by comparing 26 models of the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) with observations from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and the Climate Research Unit (CRU). Monthly data of the observations and models were averaged for each season, and statistics were calculated for individual models before averaging them to obtain ensemble means. The summers with temperature anomalies (relative to 1951-1980) exceeding 3σ (σ is based on the local internal variability) are defined as "extremely hot". The models well reproduced the statistical characteristics evolution, and partly captured the spatial distributions of historical summer temperature extremes. If the global mean temperature increases 2°C relative to the pre-industrial level, "extremely hot" summers are projected to occur over nearly 40% of the land area (multi-model ensemble mean projection). Summers that exceed 5σ warming are projected to occur over approximately 10% of the global land area, which were rarely observed during the reference period. Scenarios reaching warming levels of 3°C to 5°C were also analyzed. After exceeding the 5°C warming target, "extremely hot" summers are projected to occur throughout the entire global land area, and summers that exceed 5σ warming would become common over 70% of the land area. In addition, the areas affected by "extremely hot" summers are expected to rapidly expand by more than 25%/°C as the global mean temperature increases by up to 3°C before slowing to less than 16%/°C as the temperature continues to increase by more than 3°C. The area that experiences summers with warming of 5σ or more above the warming target of 2°C is likely to maintain rapid expansion of greater than 17%/°C. To reduce the impacts and damage from severely hot summers, the global mean temperature increase should remain low.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Climate Change
  • Ecology
  • Global Warming / statistics & numerical data*
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Seasons

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the China Meteorological Administration Special Public Welfare Research Fund (GYHY201306019, http://guoqing.china.com.cn/2012-03/23/content_24968247.htm—received by JH), the Tsinghua University Initiative Scientific Research Program (Grant No. 20131089356, http://kyxxxt.cic.tsinghua.edu.cn/—received by JH), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.41175066, http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/—received by YL). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.