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Quick temperature flickers in cold heat and vice versa have increased around the world and should increase due to climate change, stress on human health and ecosystems, according to the latest research.
The study, published in the journal Nature communications This week, said that between 1961 and 2023, more than 60% of the world had experienced more frequent, intense and faster flips between extreme temperatures.
The reason was partly attributed to the increase in the “wavosity” of the jet flow that surrounds the planet, as well as changes in evaporation.
“Climate warming should exacerbate the soil moisture deficit in certain regions, which can intensify temperature variability by increasing the effects of surface heat flows,” said the study.
However, a scientist who was not involved in the study said that the physics involved in the explanation was “difficult”.
The study has identified the major regions of western Europe, South and Southeast Asia, South America and Africa as well as those that have known the greatest effects.
This has increased the risk of significant and potentially irreversible impacts on human health, infrastructure and plant phenology, leading to “cascade effects”, according to Wei Zhang, professor at UTAH State University and one of the authors.
The authors said that if a growing set of research had examined extreme heat, such as heat waves or cold events, little things were known on rapid flips between extreme temperatures.
But they concluded that such sudden changes allowed “a very short period of time for human preparation and ecosystem to respond and adapt”.
More frequent and intense temperature flips could also exert a significant constraint on energy systems due to unpredictable overvoltage of heating or cooling demand.
The study identified notable examples, such as a hot cold turnover in March 2012 in North America, where the temperature has gone from around 10 ° C above normal to 5 ° C below normal in less than a week. The heat had led to a “false spring” with a premature flowers of plants and crops which were then damaged by the brutal fate of cold.
In September 2020, the researchers said that the rocky mountains experienced a sudden passage from the severe heat wave to a strong snow blanket after a drop of more than 20 ° C in one day, causing power cuts and material damage.
Similarly, Europe in April 2021 experienced a rapid swing of the temperatures from hot to cold, causing generalized damage to frost to crops.
The researchers, led by academics of China, examined a brutal change in a standard deviation greater than the average temperature, and Vice Versa, within five days, on a global scale during the study period of more than six decades from 1961.
They also modeled the probability of such freestures in the future, noting that in a scenario “as usual” – where the company fails to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – temperature flips should increase in intensity and frequency, with a shortening period between extremes.
The authors said that the proportion of the world's population exposed to such temperature flips could more than double and that low -income countries should bear the weight.
Mat Collins, president of Joint puts climate change at the University of Exeter, said that the study was credible in his analysis of “a potentially unexpected consequence of climate change”.
“The results must be tested using different models and different” Flips “measures, but climate change could bring more variable weather. The mechanisms put forward seem plausible to me,” he said.
“Fortunately, the weather forecast is much more reliable these days, so we have a better chance of knowing if a cold or hot spell arrives in the coming days, so that we can prepare.”
Richard Allan, professor of climate climate at Reading University, said that research “is quite new although it is difficult to interpret physics explaining the weather events that generate the biggest temperature flips”.
He added that the “wilder swings” between hot and cold, and humid and dry, “make the management of energy and water resources more difficult”.
“The only way to limit the growing severity of extreme weather conditions is to quickly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in all sectors of society.”
Research follows a study by academics from Bristol and Cardiff universities who also found a reversal between wet and dry conditions in the cities of the world.
About 15% of the most populous cities in the world experienced a “cervical boost”, an intensification and a reversal between drought and wet conditions, revealed the study supported by Charity Wateraid.
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