Leveraging Extremal Dependence to Better Characterize the 2021 Pacific Northwest Heatwave

Zhang, Likun; Risser, Mark D.; Wehner, Michael F.; O’Brien, Travis A.

doi:10.1007/s13253-024-00636-8

Title: Leveraging Extremal Dependence to Better Characterize the 2021 Pacific Northwest Heatwave

Journal Article · 13 June 2024 · Journal of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Statistics

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13253-024-00636-8 · OSTI ID:2373275

; Risser, Mark D.; Wehner, Michael F.; O’Brien, Travis A.

Abstract In late June, 2021, a devastating heatwave affected the US Pacific Northwest and western Canada, breaking numerous all-time temperature records by large margins and directly causing hundreds of fatalities. The observed 2021 daily maximum temperature across much of the U.S. Pacific Northwest exceeded upper bound estimates obtained from single-station temperature records even after accounting for anthropogenic climate change, meaning that the event could not have been predicted under standard univariate extreme value analysis assumptions. In this work, we utilize a flexible spatial extremes model that considers all stations across the Pacific Northwest domain and accounts for the fact that many stations simultaneously experience extreme temperatures. Our analysis incorporates the effects of anthropogenic forcing and natural climate variability in order to better characterize time-varying changes in the distribution of daily temperature extremes. We show that greenhouse gas forcing, drought conditions and large-scale atmospheric modes of variability all have significant impact on summertime maximum temperatures in this region. Our model represents a significant improvement over corresponding single-station analysis, and our posterior medians of the upper bounds are able to anticipate more than 96% of the observed 2021 high station temperatures after properly accounting for extremal dependence. Supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear online.

View Journal Article

Cite

Export

Save

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231

OSTI ID:: 2373275

Journal Information:: Journal of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Statistics, Journal Name: Journal of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Statistics; ISSN 1085-7117

Publisher:: Springer Science + Business MediaCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (49)

Statistical Modeling of Spatial Extremes Davison, A. C.; Padoan, S. A.; Ribatet, M. Statistical Science, Vol. 27, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1214/11-STS376	journal	May 2012
A Statistical-Topographic Model for Mapping Climatological Precipitation over Mountainous Terrain Daly, Christopher; Neilson, Ronald P.; Phillips, Donald L. Journal of Applied Meteorology, Vol. 33, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1994)033<0140:ASTMFM>2.0.CO;2	journal	February 1994
An examination of urban heat island characteristics in a global climate model Oleson, K. W.; Bonan, G. B.; Feddema, J. International Journal of Climatology, Vol. 31, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.2201	journal	July 2010
Combination Mode Dynamics of the Anomalous Northwest Pacific Anticyclone Stuecker, Malte F.; Jin, Fei-Fei; Timmermann, Axel Journal of Climate, Vol. 28, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00225.1	journal	February 2015
Global warming potentials and radiative efficiencies of halocarbons and related compounds: A comprehensive review: HALOCARBON REVIEW Hodnebrog, Ø.; Etminan, M.; Fuglestvedt, J. S. Reviews of Geophysics, Vol. 51, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1002/rog.20013	journal	April 2013
Radiative forcing of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide: A significant revision of the methane radiative forcing: Greenhouse Gas Radiative Forcing Etminan, M.; Myhre, G.; Highwood, E. J. Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 43, Issue 24 https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL071930	journal	December 2016
Early 21st century anthropogenic changes in extremely hot days as simulated by the C20C+ detection and attribution multi-model ensemble Wehner, Michael; Stone, Dáithí; Shiogama, Hideo Weather and Climate Extremes, Vol. 20 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2018.03.001	journal	June 2018
El Niño and La Niña Philander, S. G. H. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 42, Issue 23 https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(1985)042<2652:ENALN>2.0.CO;2	journal	December 1985
Housing unit and urbanization estimates for the continental U.S. in consistent tract boundaries, 1940–2019 Markley, Scott N.; Holloway, Steven R.; Hafley, Taylor J. Scientific Data, Vol. 9, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01184-x	journal	March 2022
Detected Changes in Precipitation Extremes at Their Native Scales Derived from In Situ Measurements Risser, Mark D.; Paciorek, Christopher J.; O’Brien, Travis A. Journal of Climate, Vol. 32, Issue 23 https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0077.1	journal	November 2019
Quantitative attribution of climate effects on Hurricane Harvey’s extreme rainfall in Texas Wang, S-Y Simon; Zhao, Lin; Yoon, Jin-Ho Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 13, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aabb85	journal	April 2018
Rapid attribution analysis of the extraordinary heatwave on the Pacific Coast of the US and Canada June 2021 Philip, Sjoukje Y.; Kew, Sarah F.; van Oldenborgh, Geert Jan Earty System Dynamics https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2021-90	journal	November 2021
Anthropogenic Contributions to the 2021 Pacific Northwest Heatwave Bercos‐Hickey, Emily; O’Brien, Travis A.; Wehner, Michael F. Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 49, Issue 23 https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL099396	journal	December 2022
Attribution of Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate Change Titley, David W.; Hegrel, Gabriele; Jacobs, Katherine L. National Academies Press https://doi.org/10.17226/21852	book	January 2016
Accounting for the spatial structure of weather systems in detected changes in precipitation extremes Zhang, Likun; Risser, Mark D.; Molter, Edward M. Weather and Climate Extremes, Vol. 38 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2022.100499	journal	December 2022
Attributable Human-Induced Changes in the Likelihood and Magnitude of the Observed Extreme Precipitation during Hurricane Harvey: CHANGES IN EXTREME PRECIPITATION IN TX Risser, Mark D.; Wehner, Michael F. Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 44, Issue 24 https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL075888	journal	December 2017
Investigating Causal Relations by Econometric Models and Cross-spectral Methods Granger, C. W. J. Econometrica, Vol. 37, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.2307/1912791	journal	August 1969
An Overview of the Global Historical Climatology Network-Daily Database Menne, Matthew J.; Durre, Imke; Vose, Russell S. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, Vol. 29, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-11-00103.1	journal	July 2012
Predicting the unprecedented: forecasting the June 2021 Pacific Northwest heatwave Emerton, R.; Brimicombe, C.; Magnusson, L. Weather, Vol. 77, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1002/wea.4257	journal	July 2022
How Unexpected Was the 2021 Pacific Northwest Heatwave? McKinnon, Karen A.; Simpson, Isla R. Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 49, Issue 18 https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL100380	journal	September 2022
An anomalous warm-season trans-Pacific atmospheric river linked to the 2021 western North America heatwave Mo, Ruping; Lin, Hai; Vitart, Frédéric Communications Earth & Environment, Vol. 3, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-022-00459-w	journal	June 2022
Anthropogenic influences on major tropical cyclone events Patricola, Christina M.; Wehner, Michael F. Nature, Vol. 563, Issue 7731 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0673-2	journal	November 2018
Bayesian lasso regression Hans, C. Biometrika, Vol. 96, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/asp047	journal	September 2009
Bayesian Spatial Modeling of Extreme Precipitation Return Levels Cooley, Daniel; Nychka, Douglas; Naveau, Philippe Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 102, Issue 479 https://doi.org/10.1198/016214506000000780	journal	September 2007
Local Likelihood Estimation of Complex Tail Dependence Structures, Applied to U.S. Precipitation Extremes Castro-Camilo, Daniela; Huser, Raphaël Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 115, Issue 531 https://doi.org/10.1080/01621459.2019.1647842	journal	September 2019
Bridging asymptotic independence and dependence in spatial extremes using Gaussian scale mixtures Huser, Raphaël; Opitz, Thomas; Thibaud, Emeric Spatial Statistics, Vol. 21 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spasta.2017.06.004	journal	August 2017
Unprecedented Heatwave in Western North America during Late June of 2021: Roles of Atmospheric Circulation and Global Warming Wang, Chunzai; Zheng, Jiayu; Lin, Wei Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 40, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-022-2078-2	journal	July 2022
Unprecedented 21st century heat across the Pacific Northwest of North America Heeter, Karen J.; Harley, Grant L.; Abatzoglou, John T. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, Vol. 6, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-023-00340-3	journal	February 2023
On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Earth Arrhenius, S. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol. 9 https://doi.org/10.1086/121158	journal	February 1897
The Integrated Surface Database: Recent Developments and Partnerships Smith, Adam; Lott, Neal; Vose, Russ Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 92, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1175/2011BAMS3015.1	journal	June 2011
A Method for Detection and Attribution of Regional Precipitation Change Using Granger Causality Application to the United States Historical Record Risser, Mark; Collins, William; Wehner, Michael Research Square https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-785460/v1	preprint	August 2021
New, improved version of generic mapping tools released Wessel, Paul; Smith, Walter H. F. Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, Vol. 79, Issue 47 https://doi.org/10.1029/98EO00426	journal	November 1998
The relative importance among anthropogenic forcings of land use/land cover change in affecting temperature extremes Chen, Liang; Dirmeyer, Paul A. Climate Dynamics, Vol. 52, Issue 3-4 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4250-z	journal	May 2018
Quantifying statistical uncertainty in the attribution of human influence on severe weather Paciorek, Christopher J.; Stone, Dáithí A.; Wehner, Michael F. Weather and Climate Extremes, Vol. 20 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2018.01.002	journal	June 2018
The spatial distribution of rainfall extremes and the influence of El Niño Southern Oscillation Saunders, Kate; Stephenson, Alec G.; Taylor, Peter G. Weather and Climate Extremes, Vol. 18 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2017.10.001	journal	December 2017
Modelling extremes of spatial aggregates of precipitation using conditional methods Richards, Jordan; Tawn, Jonathan A.; Brown, Simon The Annals of Applied Statistics, Vol. 16, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1214/22-AOAS1609	journal	December 2022
INLA goes extreme: Bayesian tail regression for the estimation of high spatio-temporal quantiles Opitz, Thomas; Huser, Raphaël; Bakka, Haakon Extremes, Vol. 21, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10687-018-0324-x	journal	May 2018
Causal Counterfactual Theory for the Attribution of Weather and Climate-Related Events Hannart, A.; Pearl, J.; Otto, F. E. L. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 97, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00034.1	journal	January 2016
The ERA5 global reanalysis: Preliminary extension to 1950 Bell, Bill; Hersbach, Hans; Simmons, Adrian Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol. 147, Issue 741 https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.4174	journal	October 2021
An Introduction to Statistical Modeling of Extreme Values Coles, Stuart Springer Series in Statistics https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3675-0	book	January 2001
Regression-based covariance functions for nonstationary spatial modeling: Regression-based covariance functions Risser, Mark D.; Calder, Catherine A. Environmetrics, Vol. 26, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1002/env.2336	journal	March 2015
Development of a Submonthly Temperature Product to Monitor Near-Real-Time Climate Conditions and Assess Long-Term Heat Events in the United States Rennie, Jared; Bell, Jesse E.; Kunkel, Kenneth E. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, Vol. 58, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-19-0076.1	journal	December 2019
The impact of ENSO and the NAO on extreme winter precipitation in North America in observations and regional climate models Whan, Kirien; Zwiers, Francis Climate Dynamics, Vol. 48, Issue 5-6 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-3148-x	journal	May 2016
Thin plate regression splines Wood, Simon N. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Statistical Methodology), Vol. 65, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9868.00374	journal	February 2003
Modeling Spatial Processes with Unknown Extremal Dependence Class Huser, Raphaël; Wadsworth, Jennifer L. Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 114, Issue 525 https://doi.org/10.1080/01621459.2017.1411813	journal	June 2018
Prediction and projection of heatwaves Domeisen, Daniela I. V.; Eltahir, Elfatih A. B.; Fischer, Erich M. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, Vol. 4, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-022-00371-z	journal	December 2022
The West Wide Drought Tracker: Drought Monitoring at Fine Spatial Scales Abatzoglou, John T.; McEvoy, Daniel J.; Redmond, Kelly T. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 98, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0193.1	journal	September 2017
Diversity of ENSO Events Unified by Convective Threshold Sea Surface Temperature: A Nonlinear ENSO Index Williams, Ian N.; Patricola, Christina M. Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 45, Issue 17 https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL079203	journal	September 2018
The ERA5 global reanalysis Hersbach, Hans; Bell, Bill; Berrisford, Paul Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol. 146, Issue 730 https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3803	journal	June 2020

Similar Records

Anthropogenic Contributions to the 2021 Pacific Northwest Heatwave

Journal Article · 2022 · Geophysical Research Letters · OSTI ID:1903037

Bercos‐Hickey, Emily; O’Brien, Travis A.; Wehner, Michael F.; +4 more

An Inventory of AI-ready Benchmark Data for US Fires, Heatwaves, and Droughts

Dataset · 2023 · OSTI ID:2004956

Lin, Xinming; Hou, Zhangshuan

An Inventory of AI-ready Benchmark Data for US Fires, Heatwaves, and Droughts

Technical Report · 2023 · OSTI ID:2007850

Lin, Xinming; Hou, Zhangshuan

Title: Leveraging Extremal Dependence to Better Characterize the 2021 Pacific Northwest Heatwave

Citation Formats

References (49)

Similar Records

Related Subjects