2021 Heatwave Over Western North America: Structural Uncertainty and Internal Variability in GCM Projections of Humidex and Temperature Extremes

Abstract

The 2021 heatwave over Western North America (WNA) led to record-breaking air temperatures and human-perceived heat stress (humidex) values. The event was accompanied by drier conditions driven by prolonged atmospheric blocking. During the heatwave, the maximum 6-day means of humidex and temperature (HX-6 and TX-6) exhibited larger anomalies (6.70 and 5.57°C) compared to the 95th percentiles (HX95 and TX95) (4.12 and 3.73°C), relative to 1981–2021 extended summer (June-September) averages. Extreme indices of humidex show faster and larger increases than those of temperature, reflecting the nonlinear positive relationship between humidex and temperature. Future projections from a multi-model ensemble of 19 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase six (CMIP6) Global Climate Models (GCMs) clearly show an increase in humidex and temperature extremes, especially under intermediate and high emissions scenarios. Humidex indices (HX-6 and HX95) show faster and larger increases than temperature indices (TX-6 and TX95) for the same future years and global warming levels. Controlling for differences in GCM climate sensitivity to greenhouse gas forcing yields robust projections at various global warming levels, reducing the ranges of projected changes from the multi-model ensemble. At 3.0°C global warming from pre-industrial, the multi-model ensemble projects occurrences of HX-6, TX-6, HX95, and TX95 over WNA that exceed 2021 levels to occur every 3.9, 1.7, 1.4, and 2.2 years, respectively, increasing to almost annually at 4.0°C.