Avoided climate impacts of urban and rural heat and cold waves over the U.S. using large climate model ensembles for RCP8.5 and RCP4.5.

ABSTRACT: Previous studies examining future changes in heat/cold waves using climate model ensembles have been limited to grid cell-average quantities. Here, we make use of an urban parameterization in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) that represents the urban heat island effect, which can exacerbate extreme heat but may ameliorate extreme cold in urban relative to rural areas. Heat/cold wave characteristics are derived for U.S. regions from a bias-corrected CESM 30-member ensemble for climate outcomes driven by the RCP8.5 forcing scenario and a 15-member ensemble driven by RCP4.5. Significant differences are found between urban and grid cell-average heat/cold wave characteristics. Most notably, urban heat waves for 1981-2005 are more intense than grid cell-average by 2.1°C (southeast) to 4.6

SUBMITTER: Oleson KW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5839517 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature