New research finds that not only will climate change make heat waves hotter and longer, but the lengthening of heat waves will accelerate with each additional fraction of a degree of warming.
New research finds that not only will climate change make heat waves hotter and longer, but the lengthening of heat waves will accelerate with each additional fraction of a degree of warming.
In the study published July 7 in the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers led by UCLA and the Universidad Adolfo Ibañez in Santiago, Chile, found that the longest heat waves will see the greatest acceleration, and the frequency of the most extreme heat waves will increase the most. The duration of a heat wave exacerbates the risk to people, animals, agriculture and ecosystems.
By incorporating variables into climate models that account for how each day’s temperature influences the temperature of the following day, the researchers detected this acceleration at a global level. The equation they developed has the flexibility to analyze one region or to gain additional broad insight by analyzing multiple regions as a whole, said senior author and UCLA climate scientist David Neelin.
Read more at: University of California – Los Angeles
Photo Credit: Ray Redstone/Wikimedia Commons
