Widespread changes in surface temperature persistence under climate change

The effects of extreme temperature events on ecosystems and society depend critically on the persistence of the event. But to-date relatively little work has systematically explored the response of such persistence to climate change. In this talk, I will explore the evidence for changes in surface temperature persistence in output from a range of numerical simulations, including large-ensembles of climate change simulations run on Earth system models and simplified models with varying representations of radiative processes and large-scale dynamics. Together, the results indicate that climate change is expected to be accompanied by widespread changes in surface temperature persistence. The changes are generally most robust over ocean areas and arise due to a seemingly broad range of physical processes. The findings point to both the robustness of widespread changes in persistence under climate change, and the critical need to better understand, simulate and constrain such changes.