Heat stress intensification in the Mediterranean climate change hotspot

Abstract

We find that elevated greenhouse gas concentrations dramatically increase heat stress risk in the Mediterranean region, with the occurrence of hot extremes increasing by 200 to 500% throughout the region. This heat stress intensification is due to preferential warming of the hot tail of the daily temperature distribution, with 95th percentile maximum and minimum temperature magnitude increasing more than 75th percentile magnitude. This preferential warming of the hot tail is dictated in large part by a surface moisture feedback, with areas of greatest warm‐season drying showing the greatest increases in hot temperature extremes. Fine‐scale topographic and humidity effects help to further dictate the spatial variability of the heat stress response, with increases in dangerous Heat Index magnified in coastal areas. Further, emissions deceleration substantially mitigates heat stress intensification throughout the Mediterranean region, implying that emissions reductions could reduce the risk of increased heat stress in the coming decades.

Communicating the deadly consequences of global warming for human heat stress

“…Projections of changes in heat stress have accordingly received attention from the research community (9,10,15). For upper-bound, end of 21st century warming, heat in some regions could exceed the physiological tolerance of humans (16), with presently rare heat thresholds being crossed far more regularly (15).…”

“…Although far from the only metric of its type, it is among the most widely used to communicate episodes of extreme heat (9,10). For example, the US National Weather Service (NWS) approximates apparent temperature with their heat index (HI) (Materials and Methods).…”

Effect of Meteorological Variables on Air Pollutants Variation in Arid Climates

“…Developing country especially those having a desert arid climate, characterized by extreme heat during sunshine and an abrupt drop in temperature at night and a very low rainfall and extremely high evapotranspiration rates suffer at most from air pollution. Because of the influence of a subtropical high-pressure system and the many fluctuations in elevation, there is considerable variation in temperature and humidity [22]. These countries (Middle East and North Africa region) experience very often dust storms which have been shown to have severe impacts on human and animal health.…”

High Impact Heat Waves Over the Euro-Mediterranean Region and Turkey - In Concert With Atmospheric Blocking and Large Dynamical and Physical Anomalies

“…Soil moisture (SM). It varies very slowly, on the time scale of weeks to months [13,24] and thus carries potential of the previous months/season's storage until summertime. Precipitation deficit in winter and/or in early spring leads to SM deficit.…”

“…Global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been on increase since the pre-industrial era. Studies on the impact of continued emissions of GHG indicate that the Mediterranean region is among the sensitive and positively responsive regions; rise in temperature, large decrease in precipitation and increases in inter-annual warm-season variability [13,16].…”