Abstract
Excessive heat can cause discomfort, stress even mortality to humans. We investigate the multifaceted characteristics of summer heat and the affected population across China using a composite heat index (HI) based on meteorological observations and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 climate models. We highlight that HI is only applicable when maximum air temperature is above 26.7 ℃. From 1961 to 2014, China has experienced increasing heat days (1.05 day/10a) and severity (0.15 ℃/10a) with more population influenced by expanding heat extent. Simultaneously, increases in the frequency (7.58–14.80 times), duration (0.46–1.23 days) and intensity (1.00–1.42 ℃/day) of heat events are detected with increased population exposure (9.33 × 105–5.59 × 106 times·persons). In the future, increases in heat severity, spatial extent, and the affected population would be aggravated from 1.5 to 2 to 3 ℃ warming. Dangerous heat events would experience increases in frequency (12.67–70.81 times), duration (0.85–7.21 days), intensity (1.78–8.57 ℃/day), and population exposure (2.06 × 106–3.18 × 107 times·persons) under a warming climate. Some regions over the Tibetan Plateau and southwest China would be affected by expanding cautionary and extremely cautionary heat. Northwest China would experience intensified dangerous heat events whereas southeastern China would face longer-lasting heat events with stronger intensity. Precautionary strategies are essential for these regions under risk.
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Data availability
On the one hand, the observational gridded meteorological observations are available at http://www.cma.gov.cn and the 11 CMIP6-GCMs simulations can be accessed at https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip6/. On the other hand, the historical population in 2000 (POP2000) is available at https://www.resdc.cn/ and future population in 2040 (POP2040) can be obtained from the Global One-Eighth Degree Population Base Year and Projection Grids Based on the SSPs, v1.01 (https://doi.org/10.7927/m30p-j498).
Abbreviations
- Tx:
-
Daily maximum air temperature (℃)
- RH:
-
Relative humidity (%)
- HI:
-
Heat index (℃)
- HS:
-
Heat stress (℃)
- HSC :
-
Cautionary heat stress (℃)
- HSEC :
-
Extremely cautionary heat stress (℃)
- HSD :
-
Dangerous heat stress (℃)
- HSED :
-
Extremely dangerous heat stress (℃)
- Day:
-
Day of heat stress (day)
- Severity:
-
Severity of heat stress (℃)
- Extent:
-
Spatial extent of heat stress (grid)
- HEs:
-
Heat events
- Frequency:
-
Frequency of heat event (times)
- Duration:
-
Duration of heat event (days)
- Intensity:
-
Intensity of heat event (℃/day)
- IM:
-
Inner Mongolia
- SE:
-
Southeast China
- NE:
-
Northeast China
- SC:
-
South China
- NC:
-
North China
- CC:
-
Central China
- NW:
-
Northwest China
- SW:
-
Southwest China
- TP:
-
Tibetan Plateau
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Funding
This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42025104, 42022005 and 42001015), the National Research and Development Program of China (2019YFA0606903), the Program for the “Kezhen-Bingwei” Youth Talents (2020RC004 and 2021RC002) from the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2020M670432 and 2021T140657) and the Top-Notch Young Talents Program of China (Fubao Sun).
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Feng, Y., Liu, W., Wang, H. et al. Multifaceted characteristics of summer heat and affected population across China under climate change. Clim Dyn 61, 2173–2187 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-06671-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-06671-4