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Exploring warm extremes in South America: insights into regional climate change projections through dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperatures

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Abstract

This study addresses a regional research gap by analyzing summertime wet-bulb temperature (Tw) projections in South America (SA) and their implications for heatwaves in central-east Argentina (CEA). Tw emerges as a relevant variable to address the potential impact of humid and warm extremes under future climate conditions, while allowing comparison with more classical analyses based on dry-bulb temperature indices. The analyses presented in this work are based on outputs from Regional Climate Models provided by CORDEX (COordinated Regional climate Downscaling EXperiment) South America database. Tw increases in all SA stem from rising temperature and specific humidity at lower atmospheric layers. Projected Tw rise surpasses the expected maximum dry-bulb temperature (Tmax) increase across most of SA, exhibiting pronounced disparities in subtropical areas and intensifying further in CEA towards the century’s end. Projected trends in Tw and minimum dry-bulb temperature (Tmin) show similarities across SA, except for a limited area within CEA where relatively larger Tw increases are expected. The frequency and intensity of heat extremes are also anticipated to increase in the coming years in SA. Noteworthy findings encompass projected increases in hot days, hot nights, and wet days, with the tropical region standing out for its pronounced projections. Remarkably, the number of wet days would rise significantly, followed by less prominent increases in the number of hot nights and days. Moreover, heightened persistence is expected for wet days compared to hot days and nights. A bivariate statistical analysis of heatwave projections in CEA reveals a transition towards warmer and more humid spells. This underscores the critical need to integrate air humidity conditions for accurate assessments of future health risks. Despite inherent uncertainties in climate change projections, consensus emerges on the direction of the expected changes, as well as on the urgency of limiting greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate the imminent threat of humid heatwaves in CEA.

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Data availability

CORDEX data was downloaded from the official website (https://cordex.org/data-access/). ERA5 data was retrieved from the Copernicus Climate Change Service website (https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/).

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the CPA staff from CIMA Institute for their generous support and technical assistance. We especially thank Rodrigo Marquez, Claudio Mattera, Paula Richter, Alfredo Rolla, Pablo Roselli, and Gabriel Vieytes.

Funding

This work was partially supported by Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas [Project PIP-112-2020-0102141-CO]; and Universidad Nacional de Rosario [Project PID-UNR SECYT 80020190100069UR]; and Agencia Nacional de Promoción de la Investigación, el Desarrollo Tecnológico y la Innovación [Project PICT-2021-I-A-01097].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CONICET - UNR, Instituto de Física Rosario (IFIR), Blvd. 27 de Febrero 210 Bis, (S2000EKF) Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina

    Tanea Coronato & Rita Abalone

  2. UNR, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Ingeniería y Agrimensura (FCEIA), Rosario, Argentina

    Tanea Coronato & Rita Abalone

  3. CNRS – IRD – CONICET – UBA, Institut Franco-Argentin d’Estudes sur le Climat et ses Impacts (IRL IFAECI), Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Tanea Coronato, Andrea F. Carril & Pablo G. Zaninelli

  4. UBA - CONICET, Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera (CIMA), Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Andrea F. Carril

  5. IGEO, CSIC-Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, España

    Pablo G. Zaninelli

  6. UNLP, Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas, La Plata, Argentina

    Pablo G. Zaninelli

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  1. Tanea Coronato
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  4. Rita Abalone
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Tanea Coronato. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Tanea Coronato and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. The funding acquisition was obtained by Andrea F. Carril and Rita Abalone. The study was supervised by Andrea F. Carril. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Coronato, T., Carril, A.F., Zaninelli, P.G. et al. Exploring warm extremes in South America: insights into regional climate change projections through dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperatures. Clim Dyn 62, 4391–4410 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-024-07140-2

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