Climate Extremes Modeling and Projections in East Asia
Summary
East Asia experiences some of the world’s most severe climate extremes, driven by the complex interplay of the Asian monsoon, regional topography and rapidly changing land use. Advances in both global climate models (GCMs) and high‐resolution regional climate models (RCMs) have improved our understanding of how extreme temperature and precipitation events may evolve under various warming scenarios. Dynamical downscaling through RCMs captures finer‐scale variability and the influence of terrain, while multi‐model ensembles from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) quantify uncertainty in future projections. Studies now routinely assess not only changes in the intensity and frequency of events but also compound extremes—simultaneous occurrences of, for example, heat and heavy rainfall—and the resulting exposure of densely populated coastal and riverine communities. Projections under different global warming targets, from 1.5 °C to 4 °C, reveal nonlinear increases in flood risk, drought duration and heat stress, emphasising the importance of stringent mitigation pathways and targeted adaptation strategies across East Asia.
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Climate Extremes Modeling and Projections in East Asia publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in climate extremes modeling and projections in east asia across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Integrated vapour transport (IVT): The horizontal flux of water vapour through the atmosphere, used to identify and quantify moisture‐driven extreme events.
Compound extremes: Multiple climate extremes occurring simultaneously or sequentially, amplifying impacts on ecosystems and societies.
Return period: The average interval at which a given magnitude of an extreme event is expected to be equalled or exceeded.
Regional Climate Model (RCM): A high‐resolution modelling framework nested within global models to simulate detailed climate processes over a specific region.
References
- Future Projections of Extreme Integrated Water Vapor Transport and Population Exposure Over the Asian Monsoon Region. Earth's Future (2023).
- Changes in concurrent precipitation and temperature extremes over the Asian monsoon region: observation and projection. Environmental Research Letters (2023).
- Changes in Extreme Climate Events in China Under 1.5 °C–4 °C Global Warming Targets: Projections Using an Ensemble of Regional Climate Model Simulations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres (2020).
- Use of the RegCM System over East Asia: Review and Perspectives. Engineering (2017).
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