Mazdiyasni Omid, AghaKouchak Amir
Center for Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697.
Center for Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Sep 15;112(37):11484-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1422945112. Epub 2015 Aug 31.
A combination of climate events (e.g., low precipitation and high temperatures) may cause a significant impact on the ecosystem and society, although individual events involved may not be severe extremes themselves. Analyzing historical changes in concurrent climate extremes is critical to preparing for and mitigating the negative effects of climatic change and variability. This study focuses on the changes in concurrences of heatwaves and meteorological droughts from 1960 to 2010. Despite an apparent hiatus in rising temperature and no significant trend in droughts, we show a substantial increase in concurrent droughts and heatwaves across most parts of the United States, and a statistically significant shift in the distribution of concurrent extremes. Although commonly used trend analysis methods do not show any trend in concurrent droughts and heatwaves, a unique statistical approach discussed in this study exhibits a statistically significant change in the distribution of the data.
尽管单个气候事件本身可能并不极端严重，但多种气候事件（如低降水量和高温）的组合可能会对生态系统和社会造成重大影响。分析同时发生的极端气候事件的历史变化对于应对和减轻气候变化及变率的负面影响至关重要。本研究聚焦于1960年至2010年热浪与气象干旱并发情况的变化。尽管气温上升明显出现停滞，干旱也无显著趋势，但我们发现美国大部分地区干旱与热浪并发情况大幅增加，同时并发极端事件的分布出现了具有统计学意义的转变。虽然常用的趋势分析方法未显示干旱与热浪并发情况有任何趋势，但本研究讨论的一种独特统计方法表明数据分布出现了具有统计学意义的变化。
