Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 112, Issue 37, Pages 11484-11489Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1422945112
Keywords
climate change; drought; heatwave; compound climate extremes; concurrent extremes
Categories
Funding
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Modeling, Analysis, Prediction, and Projections program [NA14OAR4310222]
- National Science Foundation [EAR-1316536]
- Directorate For Geosciences [1316536] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Earth Sciences [1316536] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
A combination of climate events (e.g., low precipitation and high temperatures) may cause a significant impact on the ecosystem and society, although individual events involved may not be severe extremes themselves. Analyzing historical changes in concurrent climate extremes is critical to preparing for and mitigating the negative effects of climatic change and variability. This study focuses on the changes in concurrences of heatwaves and meteorological droughts from 1960 to 2010. Despite an apparent hiatus in rising temperature and no significant trend in droughts, we show a substantial increase in concurrent droughts and heatwaves across most parts of the United States, and a statistically significant shift in the distribution of concurrent extremes. Although commonly used trend analysis methods do not show any trend in concurrent droughts and heatwaves, a unique statistical approach discussed in this study exhibits a statistically significant change in the distribution of the data.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available