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What causes compound humidity-heat extremes to have different coupling strengths over the mid-lower reaches of the Yangtze River?

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Abstract

Heat extremes severely affect human-health. Their impacts can be further exacerbated when humidity is included, which forms a kind of compound extremes called as compound humidity-heat extremes (CHEs). Previous works mainly focus on the spatiotemporal patterns and causes of CHEs, limited studies are devoted to the coupling strength between the involved two variables, which quantifies the coherence between the two fields and also plays a key role in determining the intensity and persistence of such CHEs. Based on Dynamical System (DS) method, this study takes the successive reanalysis data of daily mean 2-m air temperature (Tmean) and relative humidity (RH) over a given region as two DSs, then an instantaneous coupling metric is computed to quantify the coupling strength of CHEs. Although all CHEs are with a high value of Heat Index (HI), they show a marked discrepancy in coupling strength, which may be mainly related to the stability of large-scale atmosphere from four favorable underlying mechanisms: (1) westward extension and intensification of the Western North Pacific Subtropical High; (2) wave trains in mid-latitude; (3) barotropic structure and (4) no tropical cyclone. Strong coupled CHEs can meet all the requirements while weak coupled not. These novel findings provide further understandings on the compound extreme events and contribute considerably to heat-related risk assessment and management.

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Funding

The authors acknowledge the supports from National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 42175065 and 41975059).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Climate and Ocean-Atmosphere Studies, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, School of Physics, Peking University, Bei**g, China

    Yixuan Guo, Yu Huang & Zuntao Fu

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  1. Yixuan Guo
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  2. Yu Huang
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  3. Zuntao Fu
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Contributions

YG, YH and ZF conceived the study. YG conducted the analysis. All authors interpreted and discussed the results and wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zuntao Fu.

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Guo, Y., Huang, Y. & Fu, Z. What causes compound humidity-heat extremes to have different coupling strengths over the mid-lower reaches of the Yangtze River?. Clim Dyn 60, 4099–4109 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06532-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06532-6

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