Siyi Li , Bin Wang , De Li Liu , Chao Chen , Puyu Feng , Alfredo Huete , Keyu Xiang , Qiang Yu
{"title":"The contribution of climate drivers to compound drought and extreme temperature events increased in recent decades","authors":"Siyi Li , Bin Wang , De Li Liu , Chao Chen , Puyu Feng , Alfredo Huete , Keyu Xiang , Qiang Yu","doi":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100793","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100793","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Compound climate extremes severely impact crops more than individual events. Understanding historical changes in compound extreme events and their drivers is crucial for managing climate risks and protecting crop survival. Using a hybrid biophysical-statistical modeling approach, we investigated the connections between large-scale climate drivers of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)/Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and compound drought and extreme temperature (DET) across Australia's wheat belt from 1900 to 2020. DET in eastern Australia's wheat belt was more responsive to ENSO/IOD compared to the west. El Niño and positive IOD phases intensified DET and increased the probability of high-intensity DET, whereas La Niña and negative IOD reduced them. Probabilities of high-intensity DET have exhibited a temporal increase, during the strong El Niño phase and the positive IOD phase. Our findings highlight the need to assess the spatial-temporal response of compound events to climate drivers for effective early warning and mitigation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48630,"journal":{"name":"Weather and Climate Extremes","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 100793"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144596184","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Loredana Boboc , Mihai Dima , Petru Vaideanu , Monica Ionita
{"title":"Trends and variability of heat waves in Europe and the association with large-scale circulation patterns","authors":"Loredana Boboc , Mihai Dima , Petru Vaideanu , Monica Ionita","doi":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100794","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100794","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Heat waves, defined by consecutive days of abnormally high temperatures exceeding local or regional norms, have been extensively studied during the summer season. However, their characteristics and driving forces in mid-to-late spring (April and May) and early autumn (September) remain poorly understood. This study employed Empirical Orthogonal Functions and composite analysis to investigate the frequency, trend, and spatio-temporal variability of heat waves across Europe from 1921 to 2021. Our analysis reveals a significant upward trend in heat wave occurrences across most European regions, with a notable surge in the last three decades, beginning in the early 1990s. Furthermore, an increase in heat wave events has been observed in both mid-to-late spring and early autumn. The decade of 2011-2021 exhibited the highest number of recorded heat waves, with particularly intense periods, in terms of both frequency and spatial extent, occurring in 2003, 2007, 2012, 2015, and 2018. The most pronounced rise in heat wave frequency is evident in southern regions, including Spain, France, and Italy, extending through Central Europe and the Fennoscandian Peninsula. Southern and eastern regions display the most significant increase compared to previous periods. We identified three distinct blocking patterns potentially influencing the observed spatial and temporal variability of heat waves across spring, summer, and autumn. The first pattern corresponds to the positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation. The second is characterized by a blocking pattern over Fennoscandia (Scandinavian blocking). The third exhibits a high-pressure system in the west and low-pressure anomalies in the east. These findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the seasonal characteristics, underlying mechanisms, and driving forces of heat waves in Europe.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48630,"journal":{"name":"Weather and Climate Extremes","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 100794"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144596185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Zeqian Feng , Mou Leong Tan , Mohd Amirul Mahamud , Joon Chuah , Fei Zhang
{"title":"Impacts of solar radiation modification on temperature extremes and heatwaves in Southeast Asia","authors":"Zeqian Feng , Mou Leong Tan , Mohd Amirul Mahamud , Joon Chuah , Fei Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100789","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100789","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) has been proposed as a rapid solution to mitigate temperature rise, but its effects on regional temperature extremes and heatwaves remain underexplored. Southeast Asia, a region highly vulnerable to climate change due to its unique environmental and socio-economic conditions, necessitates detailed assessments of SRM impacts. This study evaluates the effects of SRM using two scenarios, G6Solar and G6Sulfur, alongside traditional emissions pathways (SSP245 and SSP585). Downscaled and bias-corrected GeoMIP6 datasets are analyzed for selected temperature and heatwave indices across 20 Southeast Asian sub-regions from 2020 to 2099. Under SSP585, annual maximum temperatures (TXx) by 2099 are projected to increase by 4–6 °C relative to the baseline, with heatwave characteristics intensifying substantially. Heatwave duration (HWD) could rise by 40–180 days, while occurrences (HWN) may increase 3–5 times, and intensity (HWA) could escalate by 5–6 °C. In contrast, SRM scenarios effectively moderate these impacts, aligning closer to the moderate SSP245 scenario. Between the two SRM approaches, G6Sulfur proves slightly more effective than G6Solar in reducing temperature extremes particularly in continental regions. Under SRM, heatwave frequency, duration, and intensity are less severe compared to SSP585, though spatial variability in effectiveness is observed and with minimal differences in mainland Southeast Asia. This study presents a comprehensive assessment of SRM's impacts on temperature extremes and heatwaves in Southeast Asia, utilizing a multi-model ensemble across multiple SRM and SSP scenarios. By focusing on a region often underrepresented in SRM research, this work offers critical insights for policymakers considering SRM as a climate mitigation strategy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48630,"journal":{"name":"Weather and Climate Extremes","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 100789"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144579820","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dynamical systems methods to understand projected heatwave intensification","authors":"Eylon Vakrat, Paul J. Kushner","doi":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100791","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100791","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Heatwaves pose well-known health dangers, and carry socio-economic and ecological consequences. Blocking highs typically drive such heatwaves during the European summer. The dynamics, surface impacts, and sensitivity to climate forcing of such events are of great interest, but because analysis of these events is sensitive to methodological details, a multi-faceted approach is needed to derive robust results. Such an analysis is carried out here, for observations and future projections. Heatwaves at meteorological stations, defined in terms of the discomfort index, which combines temperature and humidity, are well-captured in reanalysis. Reanalysis also reveals an expected equivalent-barotropic anticyclonic anomaly, with anomalously slow midtropospheric westerlies, associated with these heatwaves. A strong spatial correspondence to this structure is also found with a dynamical-systems theoretic analysis. The latter extracts the most-persistent patterns of midtropospheric flow in terms of the so-called ‘persistence metric’, <span><math><mrow><msup><mi>θ</mi><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup></mrow></math></span>. Heatwaves and blocks are far more likely to occur during persistent states. Historic and end-of-21st-century projections capture similar behavior, and the distribution of projected <span><math><mrow><msup><mi>θ</mi><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup></mrow></math></span> remains largely unchanged, indicating little change in extreme-event persistence. Neither the frequency nor the duration of persistent blocks changes in end-of-century projections, but heatwave intensity does increase. The conclusion is thus that the projected intensification of heatwaves arises from a thermodynamic mechanism and not a dynamic one. This conclusion depends on removing a multi-year running mean background from the flow for the persistence analysis. Without this high-pass filtering, a projected secular increase in persistence arises as the flow becomes characterized by a regional warming trend pattern.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48630,"journal":{"name":"Weather and Climate Extremes","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 100791"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144596451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Vegetation drought condition index for probabilistic monitoring and forecasting of vegetation drought","authors":"Jeongeun Won , Jeongju Lee , Sangdan Kim","doi":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100786","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100786","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As the impacts of meteorological drought on vegetation have intensified, there is a growing need for a system that can quantitatively assess and forecast vegetation drought. This study proposes a vegetation drought monitoring and forecasting framework utilizing a copula-based probabilistic approach to address this need. By constructing a joint probability distribution between a meteorological drought index and a vegetation index, we developed the Vegetation Drought Condition Index (VDCI), which was then integrated with numerical weather prediction data to establish a probabilistic vegetation drought forecasting framework. The VDCI is capable of selectively detecting vegetation stress caused by meteorological conditions and enables the quantitative assessment of drought severity through a four-level vegetation drought classification criteria. Spatial and temporal analyses confirmed that the VDCI can identify vegetation drought more clearly than individual indices. Moreover, the probabilistic forecasting framework demonstrated excellent forecasting performance with an average F1-score of approximately 0.9 across all pixels. This study proposes a framework enabling quantitative monitoring and forecasting of vegetation drought based on the probabilistic relationship between meteorological drought and vegetation response, and is expected to contribute to the development of ecosystem-based drought early warning and response strategies in the future.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48630,"journal":{"name":"Weather and Climate Extremes","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 100786"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144515466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Liwen Ren , Yi Li , Hui Chen , Zhen Liao , Yihui Ding
{"title":"Attribution of heat extremes and its health effects in Yangtze River Basin in late summer 2024","authors":"Liwen Ren , Yi Li , Hui Chen , Zhen Liao , Yihui Ding","doi":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100787","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100787","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>During the summer of 2024, the Yangtze River Basin (YZB) suffered from relentless heat. In particular, the late summer (from the 20th August to the 20th September) witnessed record-breaking high temperature anomalies ranging from daily to monthly timescales, reaching 5.19 °C (∼4.42 standard deviations) above the 1981–2010 mean. The Sichuan Basin was the most affected areas. Our analysis suggested that such heat event would not have occurred without past human activities, and the occurrence probability of similar events is expected to increase by 91 times by the end of the 21st century under the SSP2-4.5 scenario. We further assessed population exposure to heat-related health risks during the heat event, based on the Heat Health Risk Early Warning Level recommended by China CDC. During the summer of 2024, the late summer phase suffered the most from a prolonged period of the highest-level heat health risks (level-3), with 20 % of the population exposed. Simultaneously, there is a growing vulnerability of the population to all levels of heat health risks over the past decades, with exposures to both level-1 and level-2 reaching historical peaks in 2024. With a substantial increase in heat days, this increasing trend of population exposure to heat health risks is expected to continue in the future. Under the SSP2-4.5 scenario, for the level-1 heat health risk, an extra 20 % of the YZB population might face such conditions by 2035 comparable to the 2024 exposure. By the 2090s, the population exposure to record-breaking heat registered in late summer of 2024 will be normal, affecting 40 % of the projected population. Our study provides critical insights into the association between climate change and heat health risks from the 2024-like heat event in the YZB, highlighting the urgent need for heat health early warnings and adaptive measures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48630,"journal":{"name":"Weather and Climate Extremes","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 100787"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144515464","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A hybrid statistical-dynamical method to translate past extreme temperature days into the future climate","authors":"Julien Boé, Margot Bador, Laurent Terray","doi":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100785","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100785","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study presents a novel hybrid statistical-dynamical method intended to translate past observed weather events into the future climate, and applies it to warm and cold extreme temperature days over western Europe. The method estimates the temperature anomalies that would result if an observed event of the 1940–2023 period, defined in terms of atmospheric circulation, were to occur at the end of the 21st century, under new climatological conditions. In practice, constructed analogues of observed extreme events are built using data from regional climate projections. Three regional climate projections under the RCP8.5 emissions pathway are used in order to assess the role of model uncertainties in this context. The same approach is also used beforehand to assess the role of large-scale circulation in the observed extreme temperature days, and the ability of regional climate models to capture it is evaluated. The study finds significant variability in the role of atmospheric dynamics in extreme temperature days, contributing 35–80 % of the temperature anomaly for warm days and 20–90 % for cold days, with other factors such as land-atmosphere interactions playing an amplifying role. Regional climate models generally capture the dynamical part of temperature anomalies quite correctly. Not surprisingly extreme temperature days become more intense in the future climate, but a large inter-event spread exists. Some of the events could become much warmer, while others would not change much. Moreover, this intensification varies widely between regional climate models, and not necessarily in line with the average warming.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48630,"journal":{"name":"Weather and Climate Extremes","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 100785"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144330245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Understanding drought onset: What makes flash droughts different from conventional droughts?","authors":"Pallavi Goswami , Ailie J.E. Gallant","doi":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100782","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100782","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines the timescales of drought onset to understand the differences between rapid onset droughts, called flash droughts, and the more conventional slow-onset droughts. Using a soil moisture-based drought identification approach, we show that soil moisture across most of Australia can transition from near-normal to drought conditions within one month’s time. The median duration for non-rapid drought onset, here called a conventional drought, is 30 days, while the rapid onset drought, here called a flash drought, takes around 15 days, indicating that the difference in onset timescales of the two drought types is relatively small. Further, our findings reveal that changes to precipitation and evaporative conditions during a flash drought onset are not very different from those that cause a conventional drought onset. However, flash drought development is associated with larger magnitude of anomalies of those variables leading to drought conditions. These larger anomalies during flash droughts reduce soil moisture rapidly, with a potential to cause damage to vegetation health without sufficient early warning. Although there is a diversity in the mechanisms causing flash droughts, we show here that the majority of the flash droughts are primarily related to the joint influence of abnormally low precipitation and heightened incoming solar radiation (low cloud cover) and large vapour pressure deficits (low relative humidity). The results emphasise the need to update existing drought monitoring systems to account for more realistic timescales of drought onsets for better early warning and preparedness.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48630,"journal":{"name":"Weather and Climate Extremes","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 100782"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144296875","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Geert Lenderink , Hylke de Vries , Erik van Meijgaard , Wim de Rooy , Lambertus van Ulft , Vikki Thompson , Xiaobin Qiu , Hayley J. Fowler
{"title":"A pseudo global warming based system to study how climate change affects high impact rainfall events","authors":"Geert Lenderink , Hylke de Vries , Erik van Meijgaard , Wim de Rooy , Lambertus van Ulft , Vikki Thompson , Xiaobin Qiu , Hayley J. Fowler","doi":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100781","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100781","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Assessing the influence of climate change on extreme (convective) rainfall is challenging. In particular with global climate models, it is virtually impossible to combine high resolution modelling to represent the physical processes adequately together with conducting long simulations to achieve statistical robustness. To complement global modelling efforts, we here present an event oriented system based on pseudo global warming (PGW). The system consists of continuous short-term forecast cycles (3 days long starting each day at midnight) running a small set of 12 km resolution simulations for the present-day climate, a cooler past climate, and three warmer climates. For extreme events these runs are further downscaled to convection permitting resolutions. This allows us to study the spatiotemporal characteristics of convective rainfall and associated phenomena, like wind gusts, hail, and lightning within a climate change context. At the same time, the system has sufficient signal-to-noise to study climate change effects in rare extreme events. We illustrate the application the system with three recent extreme rainfall events (storm Babet in the UK, October 2023; the Italy spring 2023 floods; and the Germany Bavaria, 2024 floods) and discuss strengths and limitations of the method. One additional case with extreme convective wind gusts shows the potential further application of the system. All three rainfall events reveal climate change responses well beyond the commonly expected Clausius-Clapeyron rate, and two cases (in Italy and Germany) reveal a concentration of rainfall in more confined areas, disproportionally enhancing the potential for flash floods in a warming climate.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48630,"journal":{"name":"Weather and Climate Extremes","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 100781"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144231556","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Convection-permitting WRF simulation of extreme winds in Canada: Present and future scenarios","authors":"Xiao Ma, Yanping Li, Fei Huo, Zhenhua Li","doi":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100777","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wace.2025.100777","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates extreme wind events across southern Canada using 4-km convection-permitting WRF simulations under present (CTRL) and future (PGW) climate scenarios. The high resolution allows explicit representation of convective processes and complex terrain, improving local-scale wind prediction. We analyze three distinct regions—the central Prairies, Rocky Mountains, and southern Ontario—and find strong spatial and seasonal contrasts. Under future conditions, summer wind extremes intensify notably in the Prairies and southern Ontario, while winter winds decrease in the Prairies but increase in Ontario, Quebec, and mountainous areas. A conditional probability analysis based on Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) reveals that the likelihood of destructive winds (>20 m/s) rises significantly in convectively unstable environments. In southern Ontario, the probability under strong instability (CAPE >2500 J/kg) increases from nearly zero to 0.4. We also apply the Peaks-over-Threshold (POT) method to estimate 50-year return period wind speeds, which show substantial future increases, up to 6 m/s in some areas during summer. These changes indicate a rising threat from convectively driven wind extremes. This study highlights the value of convection-permitting models in resolving local wind features and emphasizes the need for region-specific adaptation strategies. The findings critically impact wind hazard assessment, infrastructure design, and climate resilience planning across southern Canada.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48630,"journal":{"name":"Weather and Climate Extremes","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 100777"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144263292","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}