Fine-scale processes regulate the response of extreme events to global climate change
- 19 October 2005
- journal article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Vol. 102 (44), 15774-15778
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0506042102
Abstract
We find that extreme temperature and precipitation events are likely to respond substantially to anthropogenically enhanced greenhouse forcing and that fine-scale climate system modifiers are likely to play a critical role in the net response. At present, such events impact a wide variety of natural and human systems, and future changes in their frequency and/or magnitude could have dramatic ecological, economic, and sociological consequences. Our results indicate that fine-scale snow albedo effects influence the response of both hot and cold events and that peak increases in extreme hot events are amplified by surface moisture feedbacks. Likewise, we find that extreme precipitation is enhanced on the lee side of rain shadows and over coastal areas dominated by convective precipitation. We project substantial, spatially heterogeneous increases in both hot and wet events over the contiguous United States by the end of the next century, suggesting that consideration of fine-scale processes is critical for accurate assessment of local- and regional-scale vulnerability to climate change.Keywords
This publication has 49 references indexed in Scilit:
- Hurricane forecasting with the high‐resolution NASA finite volume general circulation modelGeophysical Research Letters, 2005
- Meteorological effects on adult mosquito (Culex) populations in metropolitan New JerseyInternational Journal of Biometeorology, 2004
- More Intense, More Frequent, and Longer Lasting Heat Waves in the 21st CenturyScience, 2004
- Consistency of recent European summer precipitation trends and extremes with future regional climate projectionsGeophysical Research Letters, 2004
- Temporal variations in frost‐free season in the United States: 1895–2000Geophysical Research Letters, 2004
- Temporal variations of extreme precipitation events in the United States: 1895–2000Geophysical Research Letters, 2003
- Exploring the relationship between complexity and performance in a land surface model using the multicriteria methodJournal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2002
- El Niño 1997–98 and the hydrometeorological variability of Chapala, a shallow tropical lake in MexicoJournal of Hydrology, 2002
- Ecological responses to recent climate changeNature, 2002
- Re-analyzing historical records of winter injury in Finnish apple orchardsCanadian Journal of Plant Science, 2001