Rapid Acceleration of Dangerous Compound Heatwaves and Their Impacts in a Warmer China

Abstract

Abstract This work investigates the possible future changes and impacts in spatiotemporal variation and regional features of multivariate compound heatwaves (CHWs) in China using the latest Universal Thermal Climate Index from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 simulations (CMIP6). Results indicate both strong CHWs and extremely threatening CHWs in China are projected to increase substantially in both frequency and spatial extent under different future climate scenarios while with discernible regional disparities. The more severe global warming is, and the greater the extremity of the heatwave events is, the faster the increase in CHWs is. These findings are derived from the CMIP6 projections calibrated using the robust empirical quantiles method. Climate change causes more areas and people to be exposed to CHWs. Notably, the population exposure to dangerous CHWs will increase significantly in northwest China and will appear in northeast China after the mid‐21st century under the high emission scenario.

Keywords

• compound heatwaves
• CMIP6
• UTCI
• population exposure