The increasing likelihood of temperatures above 30 to 40 °C in the United Kingdom
| Autor: | Mark McCarthy, Peter A. Stott, Nikolaos Christidis |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Science 0208 environmental biotechnology General Physics and Astronomy Climate change 02 engineering and technology 01 natural sciences Article General Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology Projection and prediction Return time Attribution Kingdom lcsh:Science 0105 earth and related environmental sciences Temperature record Multidisciplinary General Chemistry Heat wave 020801 environmental engineering Geography Greenhouse gas Climatology lcsh:Q Climate model |
| Zdroj: | Nature Communications, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-10 (2020) Nature Communications |
| ISSN: | 2041-1723 |
| Popis: | As European heatwaves become more severe, summers in the United Kingdom (UK) are also getting warmer. The UK record temperature of 38.7 °C set in Cambridge in July 2019 prompts the question of whether exceeding 40 °C is now within reach. Here, we show how human influence is increasing the likelihood of exceeding 30, 35 and 40 °C locally. We utilise observations to relate local to UK mean extremes and apply the resulting relationships to climate model data in a risk-based attribution methodology. We find that temperatures above 35 °C are becoming increasingly common in the southeast, while by 2100 many areas in the north are likely to exceed 30 °C at least once per decade. Summers which see days above 40 °C somewhere in the UK have a return time of 100-300 years at present, but, without mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, this can decrease to 3.5 years by 2100. The United Kingdom has experienced a strong heat wave in 2019 that set a new temperature record for the country of 38.7 °C. In this study the authors show that under climate change, local temperatures are increasingly likely to exceed 35 °C and 40 °C in the next decades and, hence, summers like the one of 2019 become more frequent. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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