December 15, 2019
Ubiquitous increase of extreme heat stress under global warming
It is largely accepted that the risks of extreme temperatures and resultant heat stress will continue to increase in tandem with the rise in global average temperature. However, the severity of extreme events at the regional to local scale may not be necessarily proportional to the degree of global warming. Their temporal and spatial patterns still remain uncertain. In this talk, I would like to introduce the changes in characteristics of extreme heat stress under RCP emission scenarios over South Asia, the Maritime Continent, and the Korean Peninsula. To better resolve geographically diverse climate features and enhance confidence in future changes, multiple global projections are dynamically downscaled using the regional climate models that are customized over individual regions. The analysis will be focused on identifying regionally emerging severity and the risk of heat stress that is considered upper boundaries on human heat tolerance.