Linkages between atmospheric rivers and  humid heat across the United States

Raymond, Colin; Shreevastava, Anamika; Slinskey, Emily; Waliser, Duane

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-791-2024

Articles | Volume 24, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-791-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-791-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 3

Research article

|

06 Mar 2024

Research article |

| 06 Mar 2024

Linkages between atmospheric rivers and humid heat across the United States

Colin Raymond, Anamika Shreevastava, Emily Slinskey, and Duane Waliser

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-791-2024-supplement

Data sets

MERRA-2 tavg1_2d_flx_Nx: 2d, 1-Hourly, Time-Averaged, Single-Level, Assimilation, Surface Flux Diagnostics V5.12.4 GMAO - Global Modeling and Assimilation Office https://doi.org/10.5067/7mcpbj41y0k6

Tracking atmospheric rivers globally as elongated targets, version 3 Bin Guan https://doi.org/10.25346/s6/b89kxf

Model code and software

Code for "Linkages between atmospheric rivers and humid heat across the United States'', v1.0 Colin Raymond https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10628209

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Short summary

How can we systematically understand what causes high levels of atmospheric humidity and thus heat stress? Here we argue that atmospheric rivers can be a useful tool, based on our finding that in several US regions, atmospheric rivers and humid heat occur close together in space and time. Most typically, an atmospheric river transports moisture which heightens heat stress, with precipitation following a day later. These effects tend to be larger for stronger and more extensive systems.