The widespread increase in global temperature is driving more frequent and more severe local heatwaves within the contiguous United States (CONUS). General circulation models (GCMs) show increasing, but spatially uneven trends in heatwave properties. However, the wide range of model outputs raises the question of the suitability of this method for indicating the future impacts of heatwaves on human health and well-being. This work examines the fitness of 32 models from CMIP5 and their ensemble median to predict a set of heatwave descriptors across the CONUS, by analyzing their capabilities in the simulation of historical heatwaves during 1950–2005. Then, we use a multi-criteria decision-making tool and rank the overall performance of each model for 10 locations with different climates. We found GCMs have different capabilities in the simulation of historical heatwave characteristics. In addition, we observed similar performances for GCMs over the areas with a partially similar climate. The ensemble model showed better performance in simulation of historical heatwave intensity in some locations, while other individual GCMs represented heatwave time-related components more similar to observations. These results are a step towards the use of contemporary weather models to guide heatwave impact predictions.

中文翻译：

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美国未来热浪的投影。第一部分：选择气候模型子集

全球温度的普遍升高正在驱使连续的美国（CONUS）内更频繁，更严重的局部热浪。通用循环模型（GCM）显示出热波特性不断增加但空间上不均匀的趋势。但是，大量的模型输出提出了这种方法是否适合指示热浪对人类健康和福祉的未来影响的问题。这项工作通过分析1950-2005年期间历史热浪的模拟能力，研究了CMIP5的32个模型及其整体中位数的适用性，以预测整个CONUS的一组热浪描述符。然后，我们使用多标准决策工具，对10个具有不同气候的地点的每个模型的整体效果进行排名。我们发现GCM在模拟历史热浪特征方面具有不同的功能。此外，我们在气候部分相似的地区观察到了GCM的相似表现。整体模型在某些位置的历史热浪强度模拟中表现出更好的性能，而其他单个GCM代表的热浪时间相关成分与观测结果更为相似。这些结果是朝着使用现代天气模型指导热浪影响预测迈出的一步。而其他单个GCM代表的热浪时间相关成分更类似于观测结果。这些结果是朝着使用现代天气模型指导热浪影响预测迈出的一步。而其他单个GCM代表的热浪时间相关成分更类似于观测结果。这些结果是朝着使用现代天气模型指导热浪影响预测迈出的一步。