Extreme Climate and Weather Events in a Warmer World

Abstract

Extreme climate and weather events are unusual and rare events that often cause a lot of damage both to nature and to people. They take place in the air (storms, tornadoes, heavy rain, atmospheric rivers), in the ocean (storm surges, marine heatwaves), and on the land (wildfires, heatwaves, floods, droughts). Many weather and climate extremes happen naturally, even without climate change. But Earth’s changing climate does change where and how often some extreme events take place, and how strong those events are. What are extreme climate and weather events? Will new or stronger extreme events happen due to climate change? How is climate change impacting extreme events? These are the type of questions that our team of climate and earth scientists from around the world will answer in this article.