Warming of hot extremes alleviated by expanding irrigation

Thiery, Wim; Visser, Auke J.; Fischer, Erich M.; Hauser, Mathias; Hirsch, Annette L.; Lawrence, David M.; Lejeune, Quentin; Davin, Edouard L.; Seneviratne, Sonia I.

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-14075-4

Title: Warming of hot extremes alleviated by expanding irrigation

Journal Article · Wed Jan 15 00:00:00 EST 2020 · Nature Communications

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-14075-4· OSTI ID:1624239

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ETH Zurich (Switzerland); Vrije Univ. Brussel (Belgium)
Wageningen Univ. (Netherlands)
ETH Zurich (Switzerland)
Univ. of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW (Australia)
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
Climate Analytics, Berlin (Germany)

Irrigation affects climate conditions – and especially hot extremes – in various regions across the globe. Yet how these climatic effects compare to other anthropogenic forcings is largely unknown. Here we provide observational and model evidence that expanding irrigation has dampened historical anthropogenic warming during hot days, with particularly strong effects over South Asia. We show that irrigation expansion can explain the negative correlation between global observed changes in daytime summer temperatures and present-day irrigation extent. While global warming increases the likelihood of hot extremes almost globally, irrigation can regionally cancel or even reverse the effects of all other forcings combined. Around one billion people (0.79–1.29) currently benefit from this dampened increase in hot extremes because irrigation massively expanded throughout the 20^th century. Our results therefore highlight that irrigation substantially reduced human exposure to warming of hot extremes but question whether this benefit will continue towards the future.

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Research Organization:: Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States); University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC); Uniscientia Foundation; ETH Zurich Foundation; European Research Council (ERC); USDA

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0012972; FC03-97ER62402; FP7-IDEAS-ERC617518; 2015- 67003-23489

OSTI ID:: 1624239

Journal Information:: Nature Communications, Vol. 11, Issue 1; ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 88 works

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Title: Warming of hot extremes alleviated by expanding irrigation

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