Deadly hotter and longer heatwaves, which worsen in severity the longer it takes to reach net zero carbon emissions, will become the norm. New climate research, published last month in Environmental Research: Climate, challenges the general belief that after net zero conditionswill begin to improve for future generations.
The researchers used climate modelling and supercomputers to understand how heatwaves will respond over the next 1,000 years, after the world reaches net zero carbon emissions. They found:
“Heatwaves are systematically hotter, longer and more frequent the longer net zero is delayed and reach their highest values when net zero is delayed until 2060. Moreover, most regional trends show no decline over the entire 1000 years of each simulation, indicating that heatwaves do not start to revert to preindustrial conditions. Some regions even display significantly increasing millennial-scale trends when net zero occurs by 2050 or later. Furthermore, the longer net zero is delayed, the more occurrences of historically rare and extreme heatwave events.”
This is particularly problematic for countries nearer the equator, which are generally more vulnerable, and where a heatwave event that breaks current historical records can be expected at least once every year or more often if net zero is delayed until 2050 or later. Heatwaves may even be exacerbated by long-term warming in the Southern Ocean even after net zero is reached.
Most trends in the data showed no decline over the entire 1,000 years of each simulation, indicating that heatwaves do not start to revert towards preindustrial conditions even when net zero is reached, for at least a millennium. Some regions even displayed heatwaves of significantly increasing severity when net zero occurs by 2050 or later.
Co-author Andrew King of the University of Melbourne says the study proves the need for immediate action on reducing emissions and planning for adaptation. “Investment in public infrastructure, housing, and health services to keep people cool and healthy during extreme heat will very likely look quite different in terms of scale, cost and the resources required under earlier versus later net zero stabilisation. This adaptation process is going to be the work of centuries, not decades.”
[This post includes material provided by the University of Melbourne.]
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