Detection of anthropogenic influence on a summertime heat stress index

Abstract

One of the most consequential impacts of anthropogenic warming on humans may be increased heat stress, combining temperature and humidity effects. Here we examine whether there are now detectable changes in summertime heat stress over land regions. As a heat stress metric we use a simplified wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) index. Observed trends in WBGT (1973–2012) are compared to trends from CMIP5 historical simulations (eight-model ensemble) using either anthropogenic and natural forcing agents combined or natural forcings alone. Our analysis suggests that there has been a detectable anthropogenic increase in mean summertime heat stress since 1973, both globally and in most land regions analyzed. A detectable increase is found over a larger fraction of land for WBGT than for temperature, as WBGT summertime means have lower interannual variability than surface temperature at gridbox scales. Notably, summertime WBGT over land has continued increasing in recent years--consistent with climate models--despite the apparent ‘hiatus’ in global warming and despite a decreasing tendency in observed relative humidity over land since the late 1990s.