Heat waves in Florida and their future from high‐resolution regional climate model integrations

Abstract

This study examines the simulation of the heatwave events over Florida from the integration of two regional climate models (RCMs) at comparatively high resolution (at 10 km grid spacing) for two decades of the current climate (1986–2005) followed by their projection in the mid‐21st century (2041–2060). The two RCMs are coupled ocean–atmosphere (CRSM) and atmosphere only (URSM), which are forced at the lateral boundaries by the corresponding simulation of the Community Climate System Model v4 (CCSM4) for both the atmosphere and the ocean. The analysis reveals a reasonable simulation of the frequency, intensity and characteristic kinematic and thermodynamic features of the heatwave events over Florida from both the RCMs with the differences between URSM and CRSM being insignificant. The future projections (2041–2060) are presented only for URSM since the projected differences from CRSM were insignificant. We found the projected change of higher frequency ranging between 20 to over 50% increase relative to the late 20th‐century frequency of heatwave events. Similarly, the projections suggest a broadening of the season of their occurrence by over 2 months. These projected changes are associated with a projected increase in the mean surface temperature, a slight increase of surface humidity but with a mean reduction of surface relative humidity, and a westward dislocation of the North Atlantic Subtropical High.