Understanding the Increasing Hot Extremes over the Northern Extratropics Using Community Atmosphere Model

Abstract

Abstract The past four decades have seen an increase of terrestrial hot extremes during summer in the northern extratropics, accompanied by the Northern Hemisphere (NH) sea surface temperature (SST) warming (mainly over 10°–70°N, 0°–360°) and CO2 concentration rising. This study aims to understand possible causes for the increasing hot extremes, which are defined on a daily basis. We conduct a series of numerical experiments using the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 model for two periods, 1979–1995 and 2002–2018. The experiment by changing the CO2 concentration only with the climatological SST shows less increase of hot extremes days than that observed, whereas that by changing the NH SST (over 10°–70°N, 0°–360°) with constant CO2 concentration strengthens the hot extremes change over mid-latitudes. The experiment with both SST and CO2 concentration changes shows hot extremes change closer to the observation compared to the single-change experiments, as well as more similar simulations of atmospheric circulations and feedbacks from cloud and radiative processes. Also discussed are roles of natural variability (e.g., Pacific Decadal Oscillation and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation) and other factors (e.g., Arctic sea ice and tropical SST).