Heatwave trends and the population exposure over China in the 21st century aswell as under 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C globalwarmer future scenarios

13Citations
Citations of this article
58Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

Abstract

Heatwaves exert negative socio-economic impacts and particularly have serious effects on public health. Based on the multi-model ensemble (MME) results of 10 downscaled high-resolution Fifth Phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) model output from NASA Earth Exchange Global Daily Downscaled Projections (NASA-GDDP), the intensity (largest lasting time), frequency and total duration of heatwaves over China as well as population exposure in the 21st century and at 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C above pre-industrial levels are investigated by using the three indices, the HeatWave Duration Index (HWDI), annual total frequency of heatwaves (N_HW) and annual total days of heatwaves (T_HW) under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. The MME results illustrate that heatwaves are projected to become more frequent (0.40/decade and 1.26/decade for N_HW), longer-lasting (3.78 days/decade and 14.59 days/decade for T_HW) as well as more extreme (1.07 days/decade and 2.90 days/decade for HWDI under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 respectively) over China. High latitude and high altitude regions, e.g., the Tibetan Plateau and northern China, are projected to experience a larger increase of intensity, frequency and the total time of heatwaves compared with southern China (except Central China). The total population affected by heatwaves is projected to increase significantly and will reach 1.18 billion in later part of the 21st century, and there will be more and more people expected to suffer long heatwave time (T_HW) in the 21st century. Compared with a 2.0 °C global warming climate, holding the global warming below 1.5 °C can avoid 26.9% and 29.1% of the increase of HWDI, 34.7% and 39.64% for N_TW and 35.3%-40.10% of T_HW under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 respectively. The half-degree less of warming will not only decrease the population exposure by 53-83 million but also avoid the threat caused by longer heatwave exposure under the two scenarios. Based on the comprehensive assessment of heatwave under the two RCP scenarios, this work would help to enhance the understanding of climate change and consequent risk in China and thus could provide useful information for making climate adaptation policies.

References Powered by Scopus

Estimates of the Regression Coefficient Based on Kendall's Tau

9878Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

More intense, more frequent, and longer lasting heat waves in the 21st century

3339Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

The impacts of climate change on water resources and agriculture in China

2955Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Cited by Powered by Scopus

Heatwave-induced human health risk assessment in megacities based on heat stress-social vulnerability-human exposure framework

127Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Future Risks of Unprecedented Compound Heat Waves Over Three Vast Urban Agglomerations in China

66Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Future precipitation-driven meteorological drought changes in the cmip5 multimodel ensembles under 1.5°c and 2°c global warming

24Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Li, Z., Guo, X., Yang, Y., Hong, Y., Wang, Z., & You, L. (2019). Heatwave trends and the population exposure over China in the 21st century aswell as under 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C globalwarmer future scenarios. Sustainability (Switzerland), 11(12). https://doi.org/10.3390/SU11123318

Readers' Seniority

Tooltip

PhD / Post grad / Masters / Doc 22

81%

Researcher 4

15%

Lecturer / Post doc 1

4%

Readers' Discipline

Tooltip

Earth and Planetary Sciences 7

32%

Engineering 6

27%

Environmental Science 6

27%

Social Sciences 3

14%

Article Metrics

Tooltip
Mentions
Blog Mentions: 1

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free