Climate models predict increasing temperature variability in poor countries

• Published in: Science Advances
• Main Authors: Bathiany, S, Dakos, V, Scheffer, M, Lenton, TM
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science 2018
• Subjects: Sea ice
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10871/39195; https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar5809

This is the final version. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record. Data and materials availability: All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials. Additional data related to this paper may be requested from the authors. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making available their model output. Observational and reanalysis data sets are freely available online. Support for the NOAA-CIRES Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project version 2c data set is provided by the U.S. DOE, Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research and by the NOAA Climate Program Office. Extreme events such as heat waves are among the most challenging aspects of climate change for societies. We show that climate models consistently project increases in temperature variability in tropical countries over the coming decades, with the Amazon as a particular hotspot of concern. During the season with maximum insolation, temperature variability increases by ∼15% per degree of global warming in Amazonia and Southern Africa and by up to 10%°C-1in the Sahel, India, and Southeast Asia. Mechanisms include drying soils and shifts in atmospheric structure. Outside the tropics, temperature variability is projected to decrease on average because of a reduced meridional temperature gradient and sea-ice loss. The countries that have contributed least to climate change, and are most vulnerable to extreme events, are projected to experience the strongest increase in variability. These changes would therefore amplify the inequality associated with the impacts of a changing climate. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) European Union Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007–2013