Light rain exacerbates extreme humid heat

Zhanjie Zhang, Yong Wang (), Guang J. Zhang (), Cheng Xing, Wenwen Xia and Mengmiao Yang
Additional contact information
Zhanjie Zhang: Tsinghua University
Yong Wang: Tsinghua University
Guang J. Zhang: Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Cheng Xing: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Wenwen Xia: Tsinghua University
Mengmiao Yang: Fujian Normal University

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Humid heat waves pose significant risks to human health and the ecosystem. Intuitively, rainfall often alleviates extreme humid heat. However, here we show that light rain often accompanies extreme humid heat, exacerbating its frequency and intensity, especially over arid and semi-arid regions compared to no rain and moderate-to-heavy rain cases. This is because light rain does not dramatically reduce solar radiation but increases near-surface humidity through enhanced surface evaporation. The water replenishment from light rain as well as a shallower planetary boundary layer is crucial for consecutive extremes where there are commonly sporadic drizzle days amidst several rain-free days. These extremes last longer than rain-free extremes. Current global climate models (GCMs) overestimate light rain. After reducing this bias in a GCM, underestimations of humid heat waves in energy-limited regions and overestimations in water-limited regions are largely alleviated. These findings underscore the underappreciated impact of light rain on extreme humid heat.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51778-9 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-51778-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-51778-9

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().