| Autor: |
Madakumbura GD; Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.; Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA., Kim H; Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. hjkim@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp., Utsumi N; Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA., Shiogama H; Center for Global Environmental Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan., Fischer EM; Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Universitätstrasse 16, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland., Seland Ø; Norwegian Meteorological Institute, Oslo, Norway., Scinocca JF; Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Environment and Climate Change Canada, University of Victoria, Victoria, V8W 2Y2, Canada., Mitchell DM; School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK., Hirabayashi Y; Department of Civil Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology, 3-7-5 Toyosu, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan., Oki T; Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. |
| Abstrakt: |
The Paris agreement was adopted to hold the global average temperature increase to well below 2 °C and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 °C. Here, we investigate the event-to-event hydroclimatic intensity, where an event is a pair of adjacent wet and dry spells, under future warming scenarios. According to a set of targeted multi-model large ensemble experiments, event-wise intensification will significantly increase globally for an additional 0.5 °C warming beyond 1.5 °C. In high latitudinal regions of the North American continent and Eurasia, this intensification is likely to involve overwhelming increases in wet spell intensity. Western and Eastern North America will likely experience more intense wet spells with negligible changes of dry spells. For the Mediterranean region, enhancement of dry spells seems to be dominating compared to the decrease in wet spell strength, and this will lead to an overall event-wise intensification. Furthermore, the extreme intensification could be 10 times stronger than the mean intensification. The high damage potential of such drastic changes between flood and drought conditions poses a major challenge to adaptation, and the findings suggest that risks could be substantially reduced by achieving a 1.5 °C target. |
