Heatwaves under different future climate scenarios and impacts on children

Periods of prolonged extreme warm temperatures, or heatwaves, have been shown to have significant impacts on human health, in particular affecting the young and old disproportionately. Observations over the past century show that the severity, frequency and duration of these heatwaves are increasing as global temperatures rise, and model simulations suggest there will be further increases in these characteristics in the future. 

We use a range of CMIP6 ScenarioMIP future simulations to show how heatwave characteristics change both globally and regionally. We show how these changes differ depending on the Shared Socio-economic Pathway (SSP) taken, highlighting the sensitivity of heatwaves to both global and regional warming in each scenario. The work also explores the non-linear trend between warming and heatwave characteristics, and how they vary in different future scenarios. The results suggest that the pathway followed has significant influence on heatwave attributes, and that attempting to limit changes by a set measure cannot be done by simply restricting the level of future warming to an agreed, designated temperature, such as the “1.5C above pre-industrial” figure often used in policy.  

Finally, we present how this work is been utilised in the production of the Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI), which provides the first comprehensive view of children’s exposure and vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. We also aim to highlight how indices like this are being used to help prepare resources for future issues related to climate events.