Key takeaways
- Each fraction of a degree of warming will have a bigger impact than the last on lengthening heat waves, with the most extreme heat waves lengthening the most.
- Tropical regions will see larger changes than temperate regions, and summer heat waves will lengthen more than winter warm spells.
- Researchers led by UCLA and the Universidad Adolfo Ibañez in Santiago, Chile, developed an equation that has the flexibility to analyze one region or to gain additional broad insight by analyzing multiple regions as a whole.
New research finds that not only will climate change make heat waves hotter and longer, but the lengthening of heat waves will accelerate with each additional fraction of a degree of warming.
In the study published July 7 in the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers led by UCLA and the Universidad Adolfo Ibañez in Santiago, Chile, found that the longest heat waves will see the greatest acceleration, and the frequency of the most extreme heat waves will increase the most. The duration of a heat wave exacerbates the risk to people, animals, agriculture and ecosystems.
Continue reading on UCLA Newsroom: https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/duration-of-heat-waves-accelerating-faster-than-global-warming