Tracking extreme heat by the hour makes climate change seem even worse
Hot hours of summer could triple in the coming decades.
Global warming is leading to more extremely hot weather. There is perhaps no more obvious consequence of climate change. But changing how we analyze this problem can still help scientists think about it in a different way that may yield surprises.
Generally, studies on heat extremes work with some combination of daily minimum, maximum, and mean temperatures. Sometimes they focus on multi-day heatwaves using those metrics, since the discomfort and health impacts increase for longer events. There are different thresholds you can use to define extreme heat in these analyses, either based on past statistics or on the human body’s physiological limits.
A new study led by Weilin Liao and Xuanzong Zhang at Sun Yat-sen University tried breaking down heat extremes to the hourly level instead, which reveals some interesting nuances.