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Explaining South Asian Monsoon Rainfall Seasonality Using a Metric of Plume Buoyancy

Localized tropical rainfall changes commonly occur on 500-1,000 km scales under various climate forcings, but understanding their causality remains challenging. One helpful process-oriented diagnostic (POD) decomposes the effects of undilute buoyancy …

Increasing risk of heat stress at the Summer Olympics

Rising temperatures under climate change threaten athlete safety at the Summer Olympics due to increasing heat stress likelihoods. For outdoor sports, suspending activity (i.e. rescheduling or cancelling) is the only possible intervention for …

Anthropogenic aerosol changes disproportionately impact the evolution of global heatwave hazard and exposure

Understanding and predicting heatwave risk is a societal imperative in the face of climate change. Anthropogenic aerosol emissions impact heat extremes more strongly per unit of mean warming than do greenhouse gases, but the influence of aerosols’ …

Cascading land surface hazards as a nexus in the Earth system

Earth’s surface is sculpted by numerous processes that move sediment, ranging from gradual and benign to abrupt and catastrophic. Although infrequent, high-magnitude sediment mobilization events can be hazardous to people and infrastructure, leaving …

Optimizing Topographic Boundary Conditions for East Pacific Climate Simulation

Overly smooth topography in general circulation models (GCMs) underestimates the blocking effect of the steep mountain ranges flanking the eastern Pacific. We explore the impact of this bias on common biases in Pacific climate simulation [i.e., the …

non-survivable heat stress conditions are already occurring

The heat stress limits for human survivability have been long defined by a 6-h exposure to a wet-bulb temperature of 35oC. This definition has been employed regularly by the climate community to understand the threat of heat stress on humans. …

Mortality impacts of the most extreme heat events

Extreme heat threatens human life, evidenced by textgreater260,000 heat-related fatalities collectively in the deadliest events since 2000. In this Review, we link physical climate science with heat mortality risk, including crossings of …

The Influence of Topography on the Global Terrestrial Water Cycle

Topography affects the distribution and movement of water on Earth, yet new insights about topographic controls continue to surprise us and exciting puzzles remain. Here we combine literature review and data synthesis to explore the influence of …

A physiological approach for assessing human survivability and liveability to heat in a changing climate

Most studies projecting human survivability limits to extreme heat with climate change use a 35 °C wet-bulb temperature (Tw) threshold without integrating variations in human physiology. This study applies physiological and biophysical principles for …

Short-term excess mortality following tropical cyclones in the United States

Knowledge of excess deaths after tropical cyclones is critical to understanding their impacts, directly relevant to policies on preparedness and mitigation. We applied an ensemble of 16 Bayesian models to 40.7 million U.S. deaths and a comprehensive …