Significant Increase of the Global Population Exposure to Increased Precipitation Extremes in the Future

Chen, Huopo; Sun, Jun

doi:10.1029/2020ef001941

Cited by 52 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…In particular, the dominant modes of China summer heat extremes are significantly driven by El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and North Atlantic Oscillation (Deng et al ., 2019; Ning et al ., 2021), and the seasonal trends of extreme precipitation events are also substantially dominated by ENSO and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (Cao et al ., 2021). What is worse, both of the extreme heat events and extreme precipitation events are projected to continue increasing and intensifying in the coming decades in many parts of the world (Kunkel Jr and Chagnon, 1999; O'Gorman and Schneider, 2009; Fischer et al ., 2013; Kharin et al ., 2013; Cowan et al ., 2014; Lau and Nath, 2014), in particular for the extreme precipitation which is expected to increase under the no‐mitigation scenario and the scenario conducting early mitigation (Chen and Sun, 2021). It is therefore critical to reveal the future changes of the decadal trends in the fraction of the compound extreme heat‐precipitation events under different radiative forcing scenarios and to assess the contributions of the internal climate variability to this compound extreme event.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rising risks of compound extreme heat‐precipitation events in China

Ning

Luo

Zhang

et al. 2022

Intl Journal of Climatology

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While the changes of extreme weather and climate events have been well investigated, the change of compound events (i.e., combinations of multiple weather/climate extremes and/or hazards), which severely affect the biophysical and human systems, remains poorly understood. Here, we examine the decadal trends of subsequently (or “preconditioned”) compound extreme heat‐precipitation events (i.e., extreme precipitation events preceded by an extreme heat) across China during 1961–2016. We find that, on average, around one‐quarter of summer precipitation extremes over China (especially western China) are preceded by an extreme heat event. In most areas of China, the fraction of the compound precipitation events preceded by heat extremes exhibits significant increases since the 1960s, with a national mean increasing tendency of 2.51%·decade−1. Furthermore, the rising trends in the fractional contribution of hot weather to extreme precipitation events over most parts of China have accelerated in more recent decades.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rising risks of compound extreme heat‐precipitation events in China

Ning

Luo

Zhang

et al. 2022

Intl Journal of Climatology

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“…To further assess the effects of changes in extreme heat-humidity events on humans, population exposure to extreme heat-humidity events are also estimated here in terms of person-days (one person exposed on one day) to the high TW max in each decade through the 21st century (figures 5 and S6). Our results indicate that populations in China are likely bear the brunt of the deadly heat-humidity events in the future, despite the fact that populations are anticipated to substantially decrease in our country (Chen and Sun 2021b). Aligning with the present climate, the high values of exposure in the future are mainly located in eastern China, which is a densely populated region that frequently suffers extreme heat-humidity events.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 70%

Increases of extreme heat-humidity days endanger future populations living in China

Chen

Sun

et al. 2022

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Changes in heat stress due to climate change affect living and working conditions. The wet-bulb temperature of 35℃ is identified as an upper physiological limit on human survivability. On the basis of CMIP6 model simulations, our evaluations show that the daily maximum wet-bulb temperature is expected to significantly intensify over China and is likely to exceed this critical threshold over some regions by the end of this century, especially under the high emission scenario of SSP5-8.5. The most dangerous hazard from extreme heat-humidity events is concentrated around the most densely populated regions of eastern China as well as Sichuan basin. Under SSP5-8.5, the significant increase of extreme heat-humidity days that daily maximum wet-bulb temperature exceeding 35℃ results in a large fractional population of approximately 81% exposed by the end of this century in China. This is true for different future warming scenarios and the population fraction would be also up to 51% exposed to such extremes even if the early mitigation conducted via SSP1-2.6. Our findings in this study thus have significant implications to the ongoing considerations for the climate change policy in our country.

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“…In a changing climate, the likelihood of hydrologic extremes has been increasing [1][2][3] , as climate change can impact both means and extremes 4 of hydrologic cycle processes, potentially resulting in an increased frequency of floods in some regions 5,6 and decreases in others 7 . In a warming world, the physical processes that affect hydrologic response, such as rain-on snow runoff events, are also changing, such that the seasonality of streamflow has been shifting 8,9 .…”

Section: Interconnected Hydrologic Extreme Drivers and Impacts Depict...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Interconnected hydrologic extreme drivers and impacts depicted by remote sensing data assimilation

Lahmers

Kumar

Locke

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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Hydrologic extremes often involve a complex interplay of several processes. For example, flood events can have a cascade of impacts, such as saturated soils and suppressed vegetation growth. Accurate representation of such interconnected processes while accounting for associated triggering factors and subsequent impacts of flood events is difficult to achieve with conceptual hydrological models alone. In this study, we use the 2019 flood in the Northern Mississippi and Missouri Basins, which caused a series of hydrologic disturbances, as an example of such a flood event. This event began with above-average precipitation combined with anomalously high snowmelt in spring 2019. This series of anomalies resulted in above normal soil moisture that prevented crops from being planted over much of the corn belt region. In the present study, we demonstrate that incorporating remote sensing information within a hydrologic modeling system adds substantial value in representing the processes that lead to the 2019 flood event and the resulting agricultural disturbances. This remote sensing data infusion improves the accuracy of soil moisture and snowmelt estimates by up to 16% and 24%, respectively, and it also improves the representation of vegetation anomalies relative to the reference crop fraction anomalies.

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Significant Increase of the Global Population Exposure to Increased Precipitation Extremes in the Future

Cited by 52 publications

References 55 publications

Rising risks of compound extreme heat‐precipitation events in China

Rising risks of compound extreme heat‐precipitation events in China

Increases of extreme heat-humidity days endanger future populations living in China

Interconnected hydrologic extreme drivers and impacts depicted by remote sensing data assimilation

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