Precipitation trends determine future occurrences of compound hot–dry events

Bevacqua, Emanuele; Zappa, Giuseppe; Lehner, Flavio; Zscheischler, Jakob

doi:10.1038/s41558-022-01309-5

Precipitation trends determine future occurrences of compound hot–dry events

Journal Article · Mon Mar 14 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · Nature Climate Change

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01309-5· OSTI ID:1978628

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Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig (Germany); OSTI
National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (CNR-ISAC), Bologna (Italy)
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (United States); National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, CO (United States)
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig (Germany); University of Bern (Switzerland)

Compound hot–dry events—co-occurring hot and dry extremes—frequently cause damages to human and natural systems, often exceeding separate impacts from heatwaves and droughts. Strong increases in the occurrence of these events are projected with warming, but associated uncertainties remain large and poorly understood. Here, using climate model large ensembles, we show that mean precipitation trends exclusively modulate the future occurrence of compound hot–dry events over land. This occurs because local warming will be large enough that future droughts will always coincide with at least moderately hot extremes, even in a 2°C warmer world. By contrast, precipitation trends are often weak and equivocal in sign, depending on the model, region and internal climate variability. Therefore, constraining regional precipitation trends will also constrain future compound hot–dry events. These results help to assess future frequencies of other compound extremes characterized by strongly different trends in the drivers.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: ERA4CS-MEDSCOPE; European Union’s Horizon 2020; Helmholtz Initiative and Networking Fund; National Science Foundation (NSF); Swiss National Science Foundation; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)

Grant/Contract Number:: FC02-97ER62402

OSTI ID:: 1978628

Journal Information:: Nature Climate Change, Journal Name: Nature Climate Change Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 12; ISSN 1758-678X

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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