Modeling extreme heat waves

Science Sessions are brief conversations with cutting-edge researchers, National Academy members, and policymakers as they discuss topics relevant to today's scientific community. Learn the behind-the-scenes story of work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), plus a broad range of scientific news about discoveries that affect the world around us.

In this episode, Kai Kornhuber explains how and why climate models struggle to reproduce extreme heat wave trends.

In this episode, we cover: •[00:00] Introduction •[00:53] Extreme weather climatologist Kai Kornhuber explains why modeling heat waves is important. •[01:38] He talks about how the study modeled hotspots of anomalous heat wave activity. •[03:01] Kornhuber tells where the hotspots are located. •[04:17] He explains how well climate models reproduce these trends. •[06:43] He talks about ways climate modelers can improve model representation of heat waves. •[07:48] Kornhuber describes the caveats and limitations of the study. •[09:08] He enumerates the key takeaways. •[10:18] Conclusion.

About Our Guest:

Kai Kornhuber Senior Research Scholar International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis

View related content here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2411258121

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