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Projected heatwave hazards in an eastern Amazonian metropolis under contrasting CMIP6 scenarios
Everaldo B de Souza1, Douglas B S Ferreira2, Alan C da Cunha3
1Instituto de Geociências, Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, Brazil. everaldo@ufpa.br.
Scientific Reports
|June 19, 2026
Summary
Future heatwaves in the Amazon will intensify, especially under high emissions. Strong mitigation efforts can maintain current heatwave conditions, crucial for tropical urban planning.
Area of Science:
- Climate Science
- Extreme Weather Events
- Urban Climatology
Background:
- Heatwaves (HWs) are significant climate extremes impacting tropical urban areas.
- Local-scale projections of future heatwave characteristics in the Amazon are limited.
- Belém, a major Amazonian city, faces potential increases in heatwave hazards.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantify projected changes in heatwave indicators for Belém, eastern Amazon.
- To assess future heatwave frequency, duration, and thermal intensity under various climate scenarios.
- To provide a quantitative basis for climate risk assessments in tropical urban environments.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a station-referenced framework with bias-corrected CMIP6 global models.
- Identified heatwaves using a 95th percentile threshold of daily maximum air temperature (Tmax).
- Assessed changes across near-future and far-future periods under four Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs).
Main Results:
- Projected intensification of heatwave hazards is scenario-dependent.
- Under the high-emission SSP5-8.5 scenario, far-future heatwave frequency more than doubles, and duration increases significantly (+46 days).
- Under the SSP1-2.6 mitigation scenario, heatwave changes remain statistically indistinguishable from present-day conditions.
Conclusions:
- Future heatwave regimes in Amazonian cities are highly dependent on socioeconomic development pathways and emission levels.
- High-emission scenarios project a substantial transformation of heatwave characteristics in Belém.
- Climate mitigation efforts, like those in SSP1-2.6, are crucial for limiting future heatwave intensification in tropical urban areas.
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