edu.ucar.opensky::articles:23141 UCAR/NCAR - Library OpenSky Support PO Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307-3000 opensky@ucar.edu http://opensky.ucar.edu/ homepage pointOfContact 2025-12-25T15:17:41.168562 ISO 19115-2 Geographic Information - Metadata - Part 2: Extensions for Imagery and Gridded Data ISO 19115-2:2009(E) https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d741717x Warming of hot extremes alleviated by expanding irrigation 2020-01-15T00:00:00Z publication https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d741717x https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-14075-4 Thiery, W. author Visser, A. J. author Fischer, E. M. author Hauser, M. author Hirsch, A. L. author Lawrence, David M. author Lejeune, Q. author Davin, E. L. author Seneviratne, S. I. author UCAR/NCAR - Library publisher Irrigation affects climate conditions - and especially hot extremes - in various regions across the globe. Yet how these climatic effects compare to other anthropogenic forcings is largely unknown. Here we provide observational and model evidence that expanding irrigation has dampened historical anthropogenic warming during hot days, with particularly strong effects over South Asia. We show that irrigation expansion can explain the negative correlation between global observed changes in daytime summer temperatures and present-day irrigation extent. While global warming increases the likelihood of hot extremes almost globally, irrigation can regionally cancel or even reverse the effects of all other forcings combined. Around one billion people (0.79-1.29) currently benefit from this dampened increase in hot extremes because irrigation massively expanded throughout the 20th century. Our results therefore highlight that irrigation substantially reduced human exposure to warming of hot extremes but question whether this benefit will continue towards the future. UCAR/NCAR - Library OpenSky Support PO Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307-3000 opensky@ucar.edu http://opensky.ucar.edu/ homepage pointOfContact PDF Text theme Resource Type 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z publication Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. None eng geoscientificInformation