Testing extreme warming and geographical heterogeneity

Extreme climate events represent a critical climate risk and a global challenge. Understanding the heterogeneity in worldwide temperatures is crucial for predicting future climate change dynamics and guiding effective policy responses. This paper addresses both issues by analyzing the presence of trends in the tail decay of the realized distribution of annual temperatures for eight regions spanning the globe over the period 1960 to 2022. Our empirical findings reveal that extreme warming exhibits heterogeneity across regions and seasons, with a pronounced distinction between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Importantly, extreme warming predominantly occurs in both hemispheres during the period from June to September.