Climate change is likely to affect economies not only through warming, but also via an increase in prolonged extreme events like heat waves. However, the impacts of heat waves on economic output are not well captured by standard empirical approaches that ignore when hot days occur. Using a global dataset spanning 1979–2016, we show agricultural losses from past heat waves are up to an order of magnitude larger than suggested by standard approaches. Combining these estimates with a suite of climate models implies that by the end of the century, climate damages in agriculture may be 5–10 times larger than is predicted by a focus on mean temperature shifts alone. These findings have important implications for targeting and evaluating climate adaptation efforts.

中文翻译：

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热浪、气候变化和经济产出

气候变化可能不仅会通过变暖影响经济，还会通过增加热浪等长期极端事件来影响经济。然而，热浪对经济产出的影响并没有被标准的经验方法很好地捕捉到，而这些方法在炎热的天气发生时会被忽略。使用跨越 1979-2016 年的全球数据集，我们显示过去热浪造成的农业损失比标准方法建议的要大一个数量级。将这些估计与一套气候模型相结合意味着，到本世纪末，农业中的气候损害可能比仅关注平均温度变化所预测的要大 5-10 倍。这些发现对于定位和评估气候适应工作具有重要意义。