Regional heterogeneity and warming dominance in the United States

Climate change exhibits both spatial and temporal heterogeneity, requiring a dual approach to mitigation and adaptation policies that addresses global and local challenges. Accurately measuringthis heterogeneity is essential for attribution and impact analysis. This study introduces straightforward quantitative tools to detectthe presence of warming, characterize warming types, and compare warming processes across regions through the concept of "warming dominance". These analyses are presented in a robust, testable format, considering the entire temperature distribution rather thanjust the mean. Applied to the United States from 1950 to 2021,the results indicate that while 50% of states do not exhibit warmingin terms of mean temperature, warming is detectable in 84% ofstates when different quantiles are considered. Clear heterogeneity inwarming patterns is observed: some states show no warming, others exhibit stronger warming in lower quantiles, some in upper quantiles,and a few demonstrate uniform warming across the temperature distribution.The paper concludes by identifying which states exhibit warming dominance over others and which states are subject to suchdominance.