Regional Differences in Summertime Extremely High Temperature in Japan due to Global Warming

Abstract

Knowledge of regional differences in future climate projections is important for effective adaptation strategies. Extreme events often arise regionally, but multiscale factors likely act together. Hence, we need discussion of multiple scales for the regional characteristics of future changes of extremes. In this study, using a large ensemble climate simulation database (d4PDF) created by global and regional climate models, the change in the temperature extreme defined as the top 10% of summertime daily maximum temperature in Japan is investigated under a globally 2- and 4-K-warmer climate, with emphasis on its regionality. Under global warming, the increase in extremely high temperature has a different spatial distribution from that of mean temperature. A simple composite analysis of extreme events shows that the high temperature occurs under a site-specific spatial pattern of sea level pressure (SLP), with a common feature of a warm anomaly up to the upper troposphere over the sites. The SLP pattern reflects the local topography and favors a foehnlike wind that increases the near-surface temperature. The impact of climate change in SLP on the foehn-inducing pattern varies with site, leading to regional differences in high-temperature changes. Therefore, the dynamic response of SLP to global warming results in a characteristic spatial distribution for the high-temperature change, which differs from the distribution for the mean-temperature change that generally shows the thermodynamic response. The characteristic is expected to appear in mountainous regions of the world, and this study helps in understanding future projections of high temperature there.