Regional changes in extreme summer temperatures could exceed average global warming by several degrees, according to Robin Clark and his colleagues at the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, UK.
They ran 224 simulations of climate responses to an atmospheric carbon dioxide level double that of today's to determine the corresponding changes in regional heat extremes. They found that in many geographical areas in the Northern Hemisphere, even the lower estimates of changes in heat extremes exceeded the global average increase in temperature.
Furthermore, 44 simulations that produced an average of 2 °C of global warming predicted that single-day extreme temperatures could increase by 6 °C or more in large parts of Europe, North America and Asia. Regional changes in excessively hot days and heatwaves are related to variability in reductions in soil moisture, the authors suggest.
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Climate science: Hotter heatwaves. Nature 466, 669 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/466669c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/466669c
