Anthropogenic influence on compound dry and hot events in China based on Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 models

Abstract Compared to individual dry or hot events, compound dry and hot events (CDHEs) usually pose more severe economic and societal impacts. A growing body of literature investigates the role of anthropogenic forcing on variations of individual dry and hot events at different spatial scales. However, the attribution of CDHEs in China using model simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) has received little attention. This study investigates the anthropogenic influence on CDHEs during summer in China and projects their future occurrences using CMIP6 simulations with data from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) as observations. The results show that large regions of China experienced a significantly increased frequency of CDHEs during 1971–2010 relative to 1931–1970, which is overall captured by the CMIP6 simulations. Anthropogenic forcing is shown to contribute to the high likelihood of CDHEs in recent decades over most parts of China, with remarkable contributions in southwestern regions. Under future socioeconomic development scenarios, these CDHEs are projected to become more frequent in 2021–2100, which will increase by approximately 51.56–55.00% on average compared to that in 1931–2010. This study could aid the development of mitigation strategies of CDHEs across China under global warming.