Dataset Information

Light rain exacerbates extreme humid heat.

ABSTRACT: Humid heat waves pose significant risks to human health and the ecosystem. Intuitively, rainfall often alleviates extreme humid heat. However, here we show that light rain often accompanies extreme humid heat, exacerbating its frequency and intensity, especially over arid and semi-arid regions compared to no rain and moderate-to-heavy rain cases. This is because light rain does not dramatically reduce solar radiation but increases near-surface humidity through enhanced surface evaporation. The water replenishment from light rain as well as a shallower planetary boundary layer is crucial for consecutive extremes where there are commonly sporadic drizzle days amidst several rain-free days. These extremes last longer than rain-free extremes. Current global climate models (GCMs) overestimate light rain. After reducing this bias in a GCM, underestimations of humid heat waves in energy-limited regions and overestimations in water-limited regions are largely alleviated. These findings underscore the underappreciated impact of light rain on extreme humid heat.

SUBMITTER: Zhang Z

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11347704 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Light rain exacerbates extreme humid heat.

Zhang Zhanjie Z Wang Yong Y Zhang Guang J GJ Xing Cheng C Xia Wenwen W Yang Mengmiao M

Nature communications 20240826 1

Humid heat waves pose significant risks to human health and the ecosystem. Intuitively, rainfall often alleviates extreme humid heat. However, here we show that light rain often accompanies extreme humid heat, exacerbating its frequency and intensity, especially over arid and semi-arid regions compared to no rain and moderate-to-heavy rain cases. This is because light rain does not dramatically reduce solar radiation but increases near-surface humidity through enhanced surface evaporation. The w ...[more]

PMID: 39187520

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Project description:Climate forecasts project further increases in extremely high-temperature events. These present threats to biodiversity, as they promote population declines and local species extinctions. This implies that ecological communities will need to rely more strongly on recovery processes, such as recolonization from a meta-community context. It is poorly understood how differences in extreme event intensity change the outcome of subsequent community reassembly and if such extremes modify the biotic environment in ways that would prevent the successful re-establishment of lost species. We studied replicated aquatic communities consisting of algae and herbivorous rotifers in a design that involved a control and two different heat wave intensity treatments (29°C and 39°C). Animal species that suffered heat-induced extinction were subsequently re-introduced at the same time and density, in each of the two treatments. The 39°C treatment led to community closure in all replicates, meaning that a previously successful herbivore species could not re-establish itself in the postheat wave community. In contrast, such closure never occurred after a 29°C event. Heat wave intensity determined the number of herbivore extinctions and strongly affected algal relative abundances. Re-introduced herbivore species were thus confronted with significantly different food environments. This ecological legacy generated by heat wave intensity led to differences in the failure or success of herbivore species re-introductions. Reassembly was significantly more variable, and hence less predictable, after an extreme heat wave, and was more canalized after a moderate one. Our results pertain to relatively simple communities, but they suggest that ecological legacies introduced by extremely high-temperature events may change subsequent ecological recovery and even prevent the successful re-establishment of lost species. Knowing the processes promoting and preventing ecological recovery is crucial to the success of species re-introduction programs and to our ability to restore ecosystems damaged by environmental extremes.

Dataset Information

Light rain exacerbates extreme humid heat.

Publications

Light rain exacerbates extreme humid heat.

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