The Alaskan Summer 2019 Extreme Heat Event: The Role of Anthropogenic Forcing, and Projections of the Increasing Risk of Occurrence
Extreme heat occurred over Alaska in June–July 2019, posing risks to infrastructure, ecosystem, and human health. It is vital to improve our understanding of the causes of such events and the extent to which anthropogenic forcing may alter their likelihood and magnitude. Here, we use multiple lar...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
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American Geophysical Union (AGU)
2022
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/141211 |
| _version_ | 1811093846506864640 |
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| author | Weidman, Sarah K. Delworth, Thomas L. Kapnick, Sarah B. Cooke, William F. |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Weidman, Sarah K. Delworth, Thomas L. Kapnick, Sarah B. Cooke, William F. |
| author_sort | Weidman, Sarah K. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Extreme heat occurred over Alaska in June–July 2019, posing risks to infrastructure,
ecosystem, and human health. It is vital to improve our understanding of the causes of such events
and the extent to which anthropogenic forcing may alter their likelihood and magnitude. Here, we use
multiple large ensembles of climate models, comprising thousands of simulated years, to investigate these
issues. Our results suggest that the presence of anthropogenic radiative forcing increased the likelihood of
the 2019 extreme heat event by as much as 6%. Further we show the rate of occurrence of such an extreme
heat event is likely to substantially increase in the future with increasing levels of atmospheric greenhouse
gases. While uncertainty in projected climate risk from model choice leads to a broad range of future
extreme heat event probabilities, some models project that with rapidly increasing levels of greenhouse
gases the likelihood of such events would exceed 75% by 2090. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:51:37Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/141211 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:51:37Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | American Geophysical Union (AGU) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1412112024-06-14T14:35:46Z The Alaskan Summer 2019 Extreme Heat Event: The Role of Anthropogenic Forcing, and Projections of the Increasing Risk of Occurrence Weidman, Sarah K. Delworth, Thomas L. Kapnick, Sarah B. Cooke, William F. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Extreme heat occurred over Alaska in June–July 2019, posing risks to infrastructure, ecosystem, and human health. It is vital to improve our understanding of the causes of such events and the extent to which anthropogenic forcing may alter their likelihood and magnitude. Here, we use multiple large ensembles of climate models, comprising thousands of simulated years, to investigate these issues. Our results suggest that the presence of anthropogenic radiative forcing increased the likelihood of the 2019 extreme heat event by as much as 6%. Further we show the rate of occurrence of such an extreme heat event is likely to substantially increase in the future with increasing levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases. While uncertainty in projected climate risk from model choice leads to a broad range of future extreme heat event probabilities, some models project that with rapidly increasing levels of greenhouse gases the likelihood of such events would exceed 75% by 2090. 2022-03-16T14:51:07Z 2022-03-16T14:51:07Z 2021-08 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2328-4277 2328-4277 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/141211 Weidman, S. K., Delworth, T. L., Kapnick, S. B., & Cooke, W. F. (2021). The Alaskan summer 2019 extreme heat event: The role of anthropogenic forcing, and projections of the increasing risk of occurrence. Earth's Future, 9, e2021EF002163 10.1029/2021ef002163 Earth's Future Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf American Geophysical Union (AGU) Wiley |
| spellingShingle | Weidman, Sarah K. Delworth, Thomas L. Kapnick, Sarah B. Cooke, William F. The Alaskan Summer 2019 Extreme Heat Event: The Role of Anthropogenic Forcing, and Projections of the Increasing Risk of Occurrence |
| title | The Alaskan Summer 2019 Extreme Heat Event: The Role of Anthropogenic Forcing, and Projections of the Increasing Risk of Occurrence |
| title_full | The Alaskan Summer 2019 Extreme Heat Event: The Role of Anthropogenic Forcing, and Projections of the Increasing Risk of Occurrence |
| title_fullStr | The Alaskan Summer 2019 Extreme Heat Event: The Role of Anthropogenic Forcing, and Projections of the Increasing Risk of Occurrence |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Alaskan Summer 2019 Extreme Heat Event: The Role of Anthropogenic Forcing, and Projections of the Increasing Risk of Occurrence |
| title_short | The Alaskan Summer 2019 Extreme Heat Event: The Role of Anthropogenic Forcing, and Projections of the Increasing Risk of Occurrence |
| title_sort | alaskan summer 2019 extreme heat event the role of anthropogenic forcing and projections of the increasing risk of occurrence |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/141211 |
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