Characterizing heatwaves based on land surface energy budget
Abstract Heat extremes pose pronounced threats to social-ecological systems and are projected to become more intense, frequent, and longer. However, the mechanisms driving heatwaves vary across heatwave types and are not yet fully understood. Here we decompose perturbations in the surface energy budget to categorize global heatwave-days into four distinct types: sunny–humid (38%), sunny-dry (26%), advective (18%), and adiabatic (18%). Notably, sunny-dry heatwave-days decrease net ecosystem carbon uptake by 0.09 gC m −2 day −1 over harvested areas, while advective heatwave-days increase the thermal stress index by 6.20 K in populated regions. In addition, from 2000 to 2020, sunny-dry heatwaves have shown the most widespread increase compared to 1979 to 1999, with 67% of terrestrial areas experiencing a doubling in their occurrence. Our findings highlight the importance of classifying heatwave-days based on their underlying mechanisms, as this can enhance our understanding of heatwaves and improve strategies for heat adaptation.
Authors
- Xiangzhong Luo
- Axel Kleidon (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3798-0730)
- Yinglin Tian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4134-1234)
- Corey Lesk (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0868-4040)
- Sha Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7161-5959)
- Sarosh Alam Ghausi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2264-5486)
- Jakob Zscheischler (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6045-1629)
- Guangqian Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5939-9138)
- Deyu Zhong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4650-7221)
Institutions
- Dartmouth College (US)
- Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (DE)
- Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (US)
- National University of Singapore (SG)
- Beijing Normal University (CN)
- State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering (CN)
- Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (DE)
- Ministry of Water Resources of the People's Republic of China (CN)
- Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (DE)
- Columbia University (US)
- Technische Universität Dresden (DE)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Communications Earth & Environment
- Published
- 2024-10-24
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01784-y
- Citations
- 14
- Primary Topic
- Climate variability and models
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.96
Funders
- European Commission
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
- Beijing Normal University
- Ministry of Water Resources
- China Scholarship Council
- Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung