In recent decades, dry-hot compound extremes, characterized by concurrent droughts and heatwaves, have significantly changed in their intensity, spatial modes, and temporal evolution. These emerging changes may reflect that the climatic boundary conditions causing dry-hot compound extremes could cross critical thresholds, with potential cascading effects that are fundamentally shifting the pattern of dry-hot compound extremes toward a new regime. This poses novel and often unanticipated extreme disasters, severely challenging the adaptability of local ecosystems and human health.
This session aims to advance our understanding of dry-hot compound extremes by integrating observational analyses, climate modeling, and artificial intelligence frameworks. Key focuses include:
1) Novel theories and methodologies for terrestrial heatwave understanding—elucidating mechanisms from the perspective of land-atmosphere-ocean coupling;
2) Drivers and mechanisms—elucidating dynamic (e.g., shifts of atmospheric circulation, and transitions of ocean circulation state) and thermodynamic (e.g., direct warming effect of greenhouse gases) processes changing compound events;
3) Long-term changes—quantifying historical trends, current intensification, future trajectories and abrupt changes under emission scenarios;
4) Climate effects—assessing cascading impacts on vegetation, ecosystem carbon cycling, and its modulation on aerosol formation.