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The 2021 western North America heat wave among the most extreme events ever recorded globally

In June 2021, western North America experienced a record-breaking heat wave outside the distribution of previously observed temperatures. While it is clear that the event was extreme, it is not obvious whether other areas in the world have also experienced events so far outside their natural variabi...

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Autores principales: Thompson, Vikki, Kennedy-Asser, Alan T., Vosper, Emily, Lo, Y. T. Eunice, Huntingford, Chris, Andrews, Oliver, Collins, Matthew, Hegerl, Gabrielle C., Mitchell, Dann
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Association for the Advancement of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9067932/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35507648
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abm6860
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author Thompson, Vikki
Kennedy-Asser, Alan T.
Vosper, Emily
Lo, Y. T. Eunice
Huntingford, Chris
Andrews, Oliver
Collins, Matthew
Hegerl, Gabrielle C.
Mitchell, Dann
author_facet Thompson, Vikki
Kennedy-Asser, Alan T.
Vosper, Emily
Lo, Y. T. Eunice
Huntingford, Chris
Andrews, Oliver
Collins, Matthew
Hegerl, Gabrielle C.
Mitchell, Dann
author_sort Thompson, Vikki
collection PubMed
description In June 2021, western North America experienced a record-breaking heat wave outside the distribution of previously observed temperatures. While it is clear that the event was extreme, it is not obvious whether other areas in the world have also experienced events so far outside their natural variability. Using a novel assessment of heat extremes, we investigate how extreme this event was in the global context. Characterizing the relative intensity of an event as the number of standard deviations from the mean, the western North America heat wave is remarkable, coming in at over four standard deviations. Throughout the globe, where we have reliable data, only five other heat waves were found to be more extreme since 1960. We find that in both reanalyses and climate projections, the statistical distribution of extremes increases through time, in line with the distribution mean shift due to climate change. Regions that, by chance, have not had a recent extreme heat wave may be less prepared for potentially imminent events.
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spelling pubmed-90679322022-05-13 The 2021 western North America heat wave among the most extreme events ever recorded globally Thompson, Vikki Kennedy-Asser, Alan T. Vosper, Emily Lo, Y. T. Eunice Huntingford, Chris Andrews, Oliver Collins, Matthew Hegerl, Gabrielle C. Mitchell, Dann Sci Adv Earth, Environmental, Ecological, and Space Sciences In June 2021, western North America experienced a record-breaking heat wave outside the distribution of previously observed temperatures. While it is clear that the event was extreme, it is not obvious whether other areas in the world have also experienced events so far outside their natural variability. Using a novel assessment of heat extremes, we investigate how extreme this event was in the global context. Characterizing the relative intensity of an event as the number of standard deviations from the mean, the western North America heat wave is remarkable, coming in at over four standard deviations. Throughout the globe, where we have reliable data, only five other heat waves were found to be more extreme since 1960. We find that in both reanalyses and climate projections, the statistical distribution of extremes increases through time, in line with the distribution mean shift due to climate change. Regions that, by chance, have not had a recent extreme heat wave may be less prepared for potentially imminent events. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2022-05-04 /pmc/articles/PMC9067932/ /pubmed/35507648 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abm6860 Text en Copyright © 2022 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Earth, Environmental, Ecological, and Space Sciences
Thompson, Vikki
Kennedy-Asser, Alan T.
Vosper, Emily
Lo, Y. T. Eunice
Huntingford, Chris
Andrews, Oliver
Collins, Matthew
Hegerl, Gabrielle C.
Mitchell, Dann
The 2021 western North America heat wave among the most extreme events ever recorded globally
title The 2021 western North America heat wave among the most extreme events ever recorded globally
title_full The 2021 western North America heat wave among the most extreme events ever recorded globally
title_fullStr The 2021 western North America heat wave among the most extreme events ever recorded globally
title_full_unstemmed The 2021 western North America heat wave among the most extreme events ever recorded globally
title_short The 2021 western North America heat wave among the most extreme events ever recorded globally
title_sort 2021 western north america heat wave among the most extreme events ever recorded globally
topic Earth, Environmental, Ecological, and Space Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9067932/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35507648
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abm6860
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