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Exposure to concurrent heatwave and ozone pollution events poses a great threat to the health burden. Yet the impacts of future warming on such compound extremes and the associated health risks remain unclear. Here, using dynamic downscaling techniques and multi-model ensembles, we estimate excess deaths attributed to heatwave-ozone compound extremes from climate change under Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). We find that, driven by future climate change, ozone pollution events in China are projected to grow by 58% by the middle of the century under SSP3-7.0, half of which are also heatwave days. Consequently, the heatwave-ozone compound event exposure rises by a factor of two, causing an additional 61,600 deaths nationwide. In highly polluted regions, such compound events outweigh single events by dominating the additional mortality from climate-induced increases in heat and ozone extremes. Our results emphasize the challenges of compound extremes and underscore the urgency of climate action and improved preparedness.
Cui et al. (Mon,) studied this question.