When will unusual heat waves become normal in a warming Africa?

Russo, Simone; Marchese, Andrea Francesco; Sillmann, Jana; Immé, G.

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/5/054016

Cited by 193 publications

(174 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…The frequency of tropical cyclones may remain unchanged but they are predicted to become more intense in some ocean basins (Seneviratne et al, ). Moreover, the duration and intensity of droughts will increase in some regions of the world, including southern and central Europe, central North America, Central America and Mexico, north‐east Brazil and southern Africa (Handmer et al, ; Pohl et al, ; Russo et al, ; Seneviratne et al, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This pattern is likely to accelerate. For example, increases in daily temperature and precipitation extremes are likely to continue, more extreme rainfall is expected in southern Africa, increased drought intensity is expected in central America, north‐east Brazil and the Mediterranean, and drought and heat waves are expected to become more frequent in Australia, northern Africa and south‐western America (Handmer et al, ; Pohl, Macron, & Monerie, ; Russo, Marchese, Sillmann, & Imme, ; Seneviratne et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Conservation implications of ecological responses to extreme weather and climate events

Maxwell

Butt

Maron

et al. 2018

Diversity and Distributions

226

162

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Aim Many conservation efforts now focus on mitigating biodiversity loss due to climate change. While a focus on impacts from mean, long‐term changes in climate is warranted, the vast majority of conservation plans largely ignore another key factor of climate change—changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather and climate events. A typology of the full range and severity of ecological responses to extreme events would help underpin tracking of their impacts. Location Global. Methods Here, we review 519 observational studies of ecological responses to extreme events between 1941 and 2015. We include responses from amphibians, birds, fish, invertebrates, mammals, plants and reptiles to cyclones, drought, flood, cold waves and heat waves. Results Negative ecological responses were the most commonly reported, accounting for 57% of all documented responses. There were over 100 cases of a >25% population decline and 31 cases of local extirpation. Sixty per cent of the studies in our review observed ecological responses for more than 1 year, and of the studies that monitored species or ecosystem recovery following exposure to an extreme event, 38% showed species or ecosystems did not recover to pre‐disturbance levels. Main conclusions Extreme weather and climate events have profound implications for species and ecosystem management. We discuss current conceptual challenges associated with incorporating extreme events into conservation planning efforts, which include how to quantify species sensitivity and adaptive capacity to extreme events, how to account for interactions between extreme events and other stressors, and how to maximize adaptive capacity to more frequent and intense extreme events.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conservation implications of ecological responses to extreme weather and climate events

Maxwell

Butt

Maron

et al. 2018

Diversity and Distributions

226

162

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“…Regional studies of heat extremes have also demonstrated how strongly low baseline variability-as is found in the tropics and to a lesser extent the subtropics-influences frequency of occurrence and time of emergence, with tropical regions such as northern Australia and much of Africa [114] projected to see large increases despite only moderate amounts of absolute warming [112,115]. On a percentile basis relative to the current climatology, Russo et al [13] project that by 2100, under the RCP 8.5 pathway, events as anomalous locally as the Russia 2010 heatwave was will occur as frequently as every year in much of the tropics and the drier parts of the midlatitudes.…”

Section: Projected Changes In Heat Event Recurrence and Time Of Emergmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Recent Advances in Research on Extreme Heat Events

Horton

Mankin

Lesk

et al. 2016

Curr Clim Change Rep

361

229

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Reviewing recent literature, we report that changes in extreme heat event characteristics such as magnitude, frequency, and duration are highly sensitive to changes in mean global-scale warming. Numerous studies have detected significant changes in the observed occurrence of extreme heat events, irrespective of how such events are defined. Further, a number of these studies have attributed present-day changes in the risk of individual heat events and the documented global-scale increase in such events to anthropogenic-driven warming. Advances in process-based studies of heat events have focused on the proximate land-atmosphere interactions through soil moisture anomalies, and changes in occurrence of the underlying atmospheric circulation associated with heat events in the midlatitudes. While evidence for a number of hypotheses remains limited, climate change nevertheless points to tail risks of possible changes in heat extremes that could exceed estimates generated from model outputs of mean temperature. We also explore risks associated with compound extreme events and nonlinear impacts associated with extreme heat.

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“…Such temperature increase is expected to continue in the future with a projected global temperature change of about 1.4°C to 4.8°C (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014) and a regional response over the Sahel of about 2°C to 6°C (Sylla, Nikiema, et al, 2016) when considering the Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 and 8.5 concentration scenarios (Moss et al, 2012). As a result, hot extremes will become more common and deadly in many regions across the world (Gasparrini et al, 2017;Im et al, 2017;Lee & Kim, 2016;Mora et al, 2017) and in tropical Africa (Giorgi et al, 2014;Liu et al, 2017;Russo et al, 2014), with their frequency, duration, and magnitude depending on the underlying forcing scenario (Anderson et al, 2018;Dosio, 2017;Linares et al, 2014;Russo et al, 2016). Such hot extremes can have widespread impacts on human and natural systems, thereby challenging the adaptive capacity and resilience of local populations and activities (Ceccherini et al, 2017;Fontaine et al, 2013;Pal & Eltahir, 2016;Sultan & Gaetani, 2016;Zougmoré et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Projected Heat Stress Under 1.5 °C and 2 °C Global Warming Scenarios Creates Unprecedented Discomfort for Humans in West Africa

et al. 2018

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Heat and discomfort indices are applied to the multimodel ensemble mean of COordinated Regional climate Downscaling EXperiment-Africa regional climate model projections to investigate future changes in heat stress and the proportion of human population at risk under 1.5°C and 2°C global warming scenarios over West Africa. The results show that heat stress of category Extreme Caution is projected to extend spatially (up to 25%) over most of the Gulf of Guinea, Sahel, and Sahara desert areas, with different regional coverage during the various seasons. Similarly, the projected seasonal proportion of human population at discomfort substantially increases to more than 50% over most of the region. In particular, in June-August over the Sahel and the western Sahara desert, new areas (15% of West Africa) where most of the population is at risk emerge. This indicates that from 50% to almost everyone over most of the Sahel countries and part of the western Sahara desert is at risk of possible heat cramp, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke in future climate scenarios. These conditions become more frequent and are accompanied by the emergence of days with dangerous heat stress category during which everyone feels discomfort and is vulnerable to a likely heat cramp and heat exhaustion. In general, all the above features are more extended and more frequent in the 2°C than in the 1.5°C scenario. Protective measures are thus required for outdoor workers, occupational settings in hot environments, and people engaged in strenuous activities.

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When will unusual heat waves become normal in a warming Africa?

Cited by 193 publications

References 34 publications

Conservation implications of ecological responses to extreme weather and climate events

Conservation implications of ecological responses to extreme weather and climate events

A Review of Recent Advances in Research on Extreme Heat Events

Projected Heat Stress Under 1.5 °C and 2 °C Global Warming Scenarios Creates Unprecedented Discomfort for Humans in West Africa

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