@article{2855bb2d05c747b69b3b2d067b7e6380,
title = "Temporally Compound Heat Wave Events and Global Warming: An Emerging Hazard",
abstract = "The temporal structure of heat waves having substantial human impact varies widely, with many featuring a compound structure of hot days interspersed with cooler breaks. In contrast, many heat wave definitions employed by meteorologists include a continuous threshold-exceedance duration criterion. This study examines the hazard of these diverse sequences of extreme heat in the present, and their change with global warming. We define compound heat waves to include those periods with additional hot days following short breaks in heat wave duration. We apply these definitions to analyze daily temperature data from observations, NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory global climate model simulations of the past and projected climate, and synthetically generated time series. We demonstrate that compound heat waves will constitute a greater proportion of heat wave hazard as the climate warms and suggest an explanation for this phenomenon. This result implies that in order to limit heat-related mortality and morbidity with global warming, there is a need to consider added vulnerability caused by the compounding of heat waves.",
keywords = "compound, global climate model, global warming, health, heat wave, risk",
author = "Baldwin, {Jane Wilson} and Dessy, {Jay Benjamin} and Vecchi, {Gabriel Andres} and Michael Oppenheimer",
note = "Funding Information: J. W. B. was supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant DGE 1148900, and a Princeton Environmental Institute-Science Technology Environmental Policy fellowship. G. A. V. was supported in part by “A Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton University” BP International 02085(7). This work was partially supported by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association Climate Program Office. We thank Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick and Tammas Loughran from the University of New South Wales for providing heat wave definition scripts instrumental to this work and Bob Kopp, Radley Horton, Gregory Garner, Frederik Simons, Jorge Gonzalez, Prathap Ramamurthy, Maya Buchanan, D.J. Rasmussen, and John Lanzante for useful discussions. This work can be reproduced using the heat wave statistics and figure scripts available via a github repository (https://github.com/janewbaldwin/Compound-Heat-Waves), and the raw GCM and derived heat wave statistics data that the scripts analyze available at the GFDL's Data Portal (ftp://nomads.gfdl.noaa.gov/users/Jane.Baldwin/compoundheatwaves/GFDL-CM2.5-FLOR/). Funding Information: J. W. B. was supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant DGE 1148900, and a Princeton Environmental Institute-Science Technology Environmental Policy fellowship. G. A. V. was supported in part by “A Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton University” BP International 02085(7). This work was partially supported by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association Climate Program Office. We thank Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick and Tammas Loughran from the University of New South Wales for providing heat wave definition scripts instrumental to this work and Bob Kopp, Radley Horton, Gregory Garner, Frederik Simons, Jorge Gonzalez, Prathap Ramamurthy, Maya Buchanan, D.J. Rasmussen, and John Lanzante for useful discussions. This work can be reproduced using the heat wave statistics and figure scripts available via a github repository (https://github.com/janewbaldwin/ Compound-Heat-Waves), and the raw GCM and derived heat wave statistics data that the scripts analyze available at the GFDL's Data Portal (ftp://nomads.gfdl.noaa.gov/users/Jane. Baldwin/compoundheatwaves/ GFDL-CM2.5-FLOR/). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright}2019. The Authors.",
year = "2019",
month = apr,
doi = "10.1029/2018EF000989",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "7",
pages = "411--427",
journal = "Earth's Future",
issn = "2328-4277",
publisher = "John Wiley and Sons Inc.",
number = "4",
}