Journal article
Australia's Unprecedented Future Temperature Extremes Under Paris Limits to Warming
SC Lewis, AD King, DM Mitchell
Geophysical Research Letters | AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION | Published : 2017
DOI: 10.1002/2017GL074612
Abstract
Record-breaking temperatures can detrimentally impact ecosystems, infrastructure, and human health. Previous studies show that climate change has influenced some observed extremes, which are expected to become more frequent under enhanced future warming. Understanding the magnitude, as a well as frequency, of such future extremes is critical for limiting detrimental impacts. We focus on temperature changes in Australian regions, including over a major coral reef-building area, and assess the potential magnitude of future extreme temperatures under Paris Agreement global warming targets (1.5°C and 2°C). Under these limits to global mean warming, we determine a set of projected high-magnitude ..
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Awarded by Natural Environment Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the support of the NCI facility in Australia, and we acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme's Working Group on Coupled Modeling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making available their model output. We thank the Bureau of Meteorology, the Bureau of Rural Sciences, and CSIRO for providing the Australian Water Availability Project (AWAP) data. The data used are listed in references and available for public download. S. C. L. is funded through the Australian Research Council (DE160100092). A. D. K. is funded through the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (CE110001028). D. M. M. is funded by a NERC independent research fellowship (NE/N014057/1).