Earth (Credit: NASA)
Monthly temperature extremes have become much more frequent, as measurements from around the world indicate. On average, there are now five times as many record-breaking hot months worldwide than could be expected without long-term global warming, shows a study now published in Climatic Change. In parts of Europe, Africa and southern Asia the number of monthly records has increased even by a factor of ten. 80 percent of observed monthly records would not have occurred without human influence on climate, concludes the authors-team of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Complutense University of Madrid.
"The last decade brought unprecedented heat waves; for instance in the US in 2012, in Russia in 2010, in Australia in 2009, and in Europe in 2003," lead-author Dim Coumou says. "Heat extremes are causing many deaths, major forest fires, and harvest losses – societies and ecosystems are not adapted to ever new record-breaking temperatures." The new study relies on 131 years of monthly temperature data for more than 12.000 grid points around the world, provided by NASA. Comprehensive analysis reveals the increase in records.
The researchers developed a robust statistical model that explains the surge in the number of records to be a consequence of the long-term global warming trend. That surge has been particularly steep over the last 40 years, due to a steep global-warming trend over this period. Superimposed on this long-term rise, the data show the effect of natural variability, with especially high numbers of heat records during years with El Niño events. This natural variability, however, does not explain the overall development of record events, found the researchers.
If global warming continues, the study projects that the number of new monthly records will be 12 times as high in 30 years as it would be without climate change. "Now this doesn't mean there will be 12 times more hot summers in Europe than today – it actually is worse," Coumou points out. For the new records set in the 2040s will not just be hot by today's standards. "To count as new records, they actually have to beat heat records set in the 2020s and 2030s, which will already be hotter than anything we have experienced to date," explains Coumou. "And this is just the global average – in some continental regions, the increase in new records will be even greater."
"Statistics alone cannot tell us what the cause of any single heat wave is, but they show a large and systematic increase in the number of heat records due to global warming," says Stefan Rahmstorf, a co-author of the study and co-chair of PIK's research domain Earth System Analysis. "Today this increase is already so large that by far most monthly heat records are due to climate change. The science is clear that only a small fraction would have occurred naturally."
###
Coumou, D., Robinson, A., Rahmstorf, S. (2013): Global increase in record-breaking monthly-mean temperatures . Climatic Change(online) [doi:10.1007/s10584-012-0668-1]
Weblink to the article: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-012-0668-1
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK): http://www.pik-potsdam.de
Thanks to Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
This press release has been viewed 114 time(s).
 |
 |
|
|
The baby loggerhead sea turtles emerged on Friday night
The longer the U.S. holds off action to mitigate climate change, the more costly the effort will become, a new report shows
Birds are everywhere, but the greatest concentration of different birds — the "bird mecca" of America — is not in our great parks, not in our forests, not where you'd suppose. Not at all.
An extremely rare, albino hermaphroditic redwood tree was in danger of being sent to the chipper because it was growing too close to the path of a new railroad line in Cotati, Calif. But thanks to local outcry from arborists and the community, the tree is getting a second chance at life.
A survey of birds has identified 361 new species that had previously been confused with known species, a quarter of which are considered threatened
Wild monkeys living in forests near Japan's devastated Fukushima nuclear reactor show worrying signs of radiation exposure
Audubon Minnesota warns that a signature feature of the new Vikings stadium, a 200,000-square-foot wall of glass, could lead to thousands of bird collisions. Kim Johnson of WCCO reports.
Changes in the Antarctic climate are showing up in the fur seal population, say scientists who have studied the animals for 30 years on the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia.
The best way to protect forests, and the carbon they contain that could otherwise cause global warming, is to hand them over to local communities
Scientists disagree about some surprising data on the state of the ice in Antarctica
 |
 |