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Quantifying the Occurrence of Record Hot Years Through Normalized Warming Trends

Journal Article · · Geophysical Research Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2020gl091626· OSTI ID:1798413
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4]
  1. Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States); Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721
  2. Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States); Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
  3. Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States); Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE (United States)
  4. Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States); Univ. de Valparaíso (Chile)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Surface air temperature trends and extreme events are of global concern and they are related. Here we show that the occurrence of record hot years over different latitudes from 1960-2019 are more strongly correlated with the observational annual mean temperature trends normalized by internal variability. Compared with the raw trends showing Arctic amplification, the normalized trends show a tropical amplification over land. Two hot spots with more frequent occurrence of record hot years are identified: northern hemisphere ocean (versus land) and southern hemisphere tropical land (versus mid- and high-latitude lands). Ensemble mean results from 32 Earth system models agree with observations better than individual models, but they do not reproduce observed large differences in correlations across latitudes between normalized trends and record-breaking events over land versus ocean. Furthermore, our results enable the quantification of record hot year occurrence through normalized warming trends and provide new metrics for model evaluation and improvement.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth and Environmental Systems Science Division
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0016533
OSTI ID:
1798413
Journal Information:
Geophysical Research Letters, Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 48; ISSN 0094-8276
Publisher:
American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
Arctic amplification
Earth system models
climate change
extreme heat
global warming
normalized warming trends
tropical amplification
warming trends