气候变化领域集成服务门户(CCPortal): Embracing the complexity of extreme weather events when quantifying their likelihood of recurrence in a warming world

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DOI	10.1088/1748-9326/aaf2dc
	Embracing the complexity of extreme weather events when quantifying their likelihood of recurrence in a warming world
	Harrington L.J.; Lewis S.; Perkins-Kirkpatrick S.E.; King A.D.; Otto F.E.L.
发表日期	2019
ISSN	17489318
卷号	14 期号:2
英文摘要	Global-average temperatures are a powerful metric for both long-term climate change policy, and also to measure the aggregate fluctuations in weather experienced around the world. However, here we show how the consideration of anomalies in annual temperatures at the global land-average scale, particularly during extremely hot years, tends to overestimate the perceived severity of extreme heat actually felt by local communities during these events. Thus, when global-mean temperatures are used as a proxy to infer the role of climate change on the likelihood of witnessing hot years, the component of extreme event risk attributed to human influence can also be overstated. This study suggests multiple alternative approaches to characterise extreme weather events which have complex spatial signatures, each of which improve the representation of perceived experiences from the event when compared with the default approach of using area-averaged time-series. However, as the definition of an extreme event becomes more specific to the observed characteristics witnessed, changes are needed in the way researchers discuss the likelihood of witnessing 'similar events' with future climate change. Using the example of the 2016 hot year, we propose an alternative framework, termed the 'Time of Maximum Similarity', to show that events like the record-breaking annual temperatures of 2016 are most likely to be witnessed between 2010-2037, with hot years thereafter becoming significantly more severe than the heat of 2016. © 2019 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd.
英文关键词	attribution; climate change; extreme events; global temperatures; time of maximum similarity
语种	英语
scopus关键词	Weather information services; Aggregate fluctuations; attribution; Climate change policies; Extreme events; Extreme weather events; Global temperatures; Global-mean temperature; time of maximum similarity; Climate change; climate change; complexity; environmental policy; extreme event; global warming; temperature anomaly
来源期刊	Environmental Research Letters
文献类型	期刊论文
条目标识符	http://gcip.llas.ac.cn/handle/2XKMVOVA/154693
作者单位	Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, United Kingdom; School of Physical Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, UNSW Canberra, PO Box 7916, Canberra, BC 2610, Australia; ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Australia, Sydney, Australia; ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Harrington L.J.,Lewis S.,Perkins-Kirkpatrick S.E.,et al. Embracing the complexity of extreme weather events when quantifying their likelihood of recurrence in a warming world[J],2019,14(2).
APA	Harrington L.J.,Lewis S.,Perkins-Kirkpatrick S.E.,King A.D.,&Otto F.E.L..(2019).Embracing the complexity of extreme weather events when quantifying their likelihood of recurrence in a warming world.Environmental Research Letters,14(2).
MLA	Harrington L.J.,et al."Embracing the complexity of extreme weather events when quantifying their likelihood of recurrence in a warming world".Environmental Research Letters 14.2(2019).