Reduced exposure to extreme precipitation from 0.5 °C less warming in global land monsoon regions

Abstract

The Paris Agreement set a goal to keep global warming well below 2 °C and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 °C. Understanding how 0.5 °C less warming reduces impacts and risks is key for climate policies. Here, we show that both areal and population exposures to dangerous extreme precipitation events (e.g., once in 10- and 20-year events) would increase consistently with warming in the populous global land monsoon regions based on Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 multimodel projections. The 0.5 °C less warming would reduce areal and population exposures to once-in-20-year extreme precipitation events by 25% (18–41%) and 36% (22–46%), respectively. The avoided impacts are more remarkable for more intense extremes. Among the monsoon subregions, South Africa is the most impacted, followed by South Asia and East Asia. Our results improve the understanding of future vulnerability to, and risk of, climate extremes, which is paramount for mitigation and adaptation activities for the global monsoon region where nearly two-thirds of the world’s population lives.