Effects Of Extreme Weather Events Research Articles

Summer drought affects abundance of grassland grasshoppers differently along an elevation gradient

Abstract Orthoptera (hereinafter termed ‘grasshoppers’) are of great functional significance since they are the main arthropod consumers in grasslands and an important food source for medium‐sized insectivorous vertebrates. However, research investigating the effects of extreme weather events on the abundance of grasshoppers has lacked thus far. Here, we studied the effects of summer drought on grasshopper abundance in temperate semi‐natural grasslands with low land‐use intensity. We considered calcareous and mesic grasslands; per type, we randomly selected 27 plots. Our study revealed distinct differences in habitat characteristics between plots of calcareous and mesic grasslands. Overall, calcareous grasslands had a more heterogeneous and shorter vegetation than mesic grasslands. Consequently, species richness was higher in calcareous grasslands. By contrast, grasshopper abundance did not differ between the two types. Summer temperature was the key driver of grasshopper abundance. Abundance was lowest in grasslands that were situated at lower elevations with higher summer temperatures and that were characterised by the strongest effects of summer drought. Its influence even overrode the differences in habitat characteristics between calcareous and mesic grasslands. Extreme weather events, such as summer droughts, are expected to become more frequent due to global warming. Accordingly, suitable conservation strategies that increase the resistance and resilience of temperate semi‐natural grasslands and their insect assemblages against summer drought are highly needed. Based on our study, increasing habitat heterogeneity seems to be the most effective way to mitigate the negative effects of summer drought.

Climate Change and the Vulnerability of Germany’s Power Sector to Heat and Drought

The effects of extreme weather events and the resilience of the energy sector have become the subject of regulatory initiatives and ongoing research. We demonstrate the vulnerability of the German power sector to climate change and provide a qualitative and quantitative analysis of emerging risks from two types of extreme weather events: droughts and high temperatures. Our analysis is based on datasets covering temperature and drought data for the last 40 years. We present evidence of a higher frequency of power plant outages as a consequence of droughts and high temperatures. To characterize the vulnerability of the power sector we develop a capacity-adjusted drought index. The results are used to assess the monetary loss of power plant outages due to heatwaves and droughts and losses to consumers due to higher wholesale electricity prices and price volatility. An increasing frequency of such extreme weather events will aggravate the observed problem.

Role of plants in determining the soil response to either a single freeze-thaw or dry-wet event

In a changing climate, extreme weather events are predicted to increase in frequency and magnitude. These events may induce stress in plants and soil microbial communities, but the impact of climate extremes on root-soil interactions remains poorly understood. To better understand the response of a temperate agroecosystem to winter freezing and drought, a mild (−5 °C) or severe (−10 °C) freeze-thaw, or dry-wet cycle was imposed on mesocosms planted with winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and unplanted soil. We measured the effect of the stresses on greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes (CO2, N2O, CH4), plant tissue composition, soil solute concentrations and soil microbial community structure. Only the most severe freezing event had a direct effect on soils, with pulses of CO2 and N2O released after thawing. In contrast, all stresses reduced C fixation and respiration in planted treatments. Total CO2 flux from planted mesocosms was reduced during the drought period and CO2 flux was negatively correlated with soil water content. The severe freeze-thaw event caused lasting damage to plants and increased rhizodeposition, resulting in increased CO2 efflux and a small alteration in soil microbial community composition. The presence of plants resulted in significantly greater total CO2 flux following freeze-thaw or dry-wet events, but only in unplanted soil was there a net increase in GHG emissions. These results demonstrate that, although the effects of stress appear magnified where plants are present, the maintenance of winter plant cover in temperate agricultural soils reduces the effects of extreme weather events on future climate.

Rainfall Characteristics during the Years of Significant Departures from Normal in the Sudano-Sahelian Ecological Zone of Nigeria

The rationale examining the rainfall characteristics during the years of significant departures from normal in the Sudano-Sahelian Ecological Zone (SSEZ) of Nigeria is based on the devastating effects of extreme weather events and their subsequent implications for agriculture and food security in sub-Saharan Africa. This study designated Significant Years of Positive Departure (SYPD) and Negative Departure (SYND) of rainfall from normal using a Z-score analysis on 39 years of rainfall data (1980-2018) for Sokoto, Kano, Maiduguri, and Nguru.  
 
 The results show that nine years possessed significant positive departures in rainfall versus six years of negative departures significant at α = 0.05. The frequency of occurrence of intra-seasonal dry spells outweighed that of wet spells in all the years except in 2000 (Maiduguri), 2012 (Kano and Nguru), and 2016 in Sokoto. Light rainfall contributed almost 60% of the total annual rainfall in the zone with heavy rains comprising 17.6% of the total in SYPD versus only 3% in SYND. The average length of the growing season (106 days) was higher during the SYND than the SYPD with an average of 99 days.  Onset and retreat days were mostly recorded during June and September respectively in SSEZ. This study found that SYPD in Sudano-Sahelian Ecological Zone possessed more wet occurrences than dry periods resulting from below-normal rainfall. These wetter occurrences also possess food security concerns because of their timing, while the SYND years portend to drought and possible famine.

Effects of climate and environmental variance on the performance of a novel peatland-based integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) system: Implications and opportunities for advancing research and disruptive innovation post COVID-19 era

Advancing wet peatland ‘paludiculture’ innovation present enormous potential to sustain carbon-cycles, reduce greenhouse-gas (GHG) gas emissions and to transition communities to low-carbon economies; however, there is limited scientific-evidence to support and enable direct commercial viability of eco-friendly products and services. This timely study reports on a novel, paludiculture-based, integrated-multi-trophic-aquaculture (IMTA) system for sustainable food production in the Irish midlands. This freshwater IMTA process relies on a naturally occurring ecosystem of microalgae, bacteria and duckweed in ponds for managing waste and water quality that is powered by wind turbines; however, as it is recirculating, it does not rely upon end-of-pipe solutions and does not discharge effluent to receiving waters. This constitutes the first report on the effects of extreme weather events on the performance of this IMTA system that produces European perch (Perca fluviatilis), rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiis) during Spring 2020. Sampling coincided with lockdown periods of worker mobility restriction due to COVID-19 pandemic. Observations revealed that the frequency and intensity of storms generated high levels of rainfall that disrupted the algal and bacterial ecosystem in the IMTA leading to the emergence and predominance of toxic cyanobacteria that caused fish mortality. There is a pressing need for international agreement on standardized set of environmental indicators to advance paludiculture innovation that addresses climate-change and sustainability. This study describes important technical parameters for advancing freshwater aquaculture (IMTA), which can be future refined using real-time monitoring-tools at farm level to inform management decision-making based on evaluating environmental indicators and weather data. The relevance of these findings to informing global sustaining and disruptive research and innovation in paludiculture is presented, along with alignment with UN Sustainable Development goals. This study also addresses global challenges and opportunities highlighting a commensurate need for international agreement on resilient indicators encompassing linked ecological, societal, cultural, economic and cultural domains.

Unprecedented heat mortality of Magellanic Penguins

AbstractExtreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe, leading to an increase in direct, adverse thermoregulatory impacts on wildlife. Here, we document an unprecedented, single-day, heat-related mortality event of Magellanic Penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus) at Punta Tombo, Chubut Province, Argentina, one of the largest breeding colonies for this species. We found 264 dead adults and 90 dead chicks in the breeding colony and along the beaches after recording the highest temperature in the shade (44°C on January 19, 2019) since the study started in December 1982. We found dead adults and chicks in postures used to release heat (i.e. lying prone with flippers and feet extended away from the body and/or bills open). We found no evidence for other causes of mortality other than heat (e.g., disease, toxic algae, starvation). Adults potentially died of dehydration, because dead adults were in significantly worse body condition than adults that survived. Dead adults had either empty stomachs or <50 g of food, and 27% of the dead adults died traveling between the nesting area and the water. More males died than females (83% male and 17% female; n = 94). In one section of the colony, ~5% of 1,153 adults died in the heat. Mortality rates of adults were unevenly distributed across the colony, suggesting that the presence of microclimates or easier beach access was an important factor to penguin survival. The body condition indices of dead and live chicks were similar and chicks that died from heat had food in their stomachs (mean = 405 ± 128 g; n = 14), suggesting that food likely inhibited their ability to thermoregulate. Documenting the effects of extreme weather events on populations is crucial to predicting how they will respond to climate change because these events, although rare, are expected to become more frequent and could have severe impacts on populations.

Climate Change Community-Based and Ecosystem-Based Adaptation Strategies in Selected Coastal Barangays in Masinloc, Zambales, Philippines

Climate change continues to intensify existing disaster risks and vulnerabilities in the Philippines. Thus, implementation of climate change adaptation strategies is vital to counter the effects of climate change. It is in this context that this study was undertaken to analyze the need or urgency to adopt community and ecosystem-based adaptation strategies among selected coastal barangays (villages) of Masinloc, Zambales, Philippines. Various methods of data collection were utilized such as secondary data collection, primary data collection through household survey, key informant interviews, and focus group. Results of the study indicate that in terms of community-based adaptation strategies, all of the seven barangays in Masinloc have moderate necessity. However, only Barangays Bani and Collat have high adaptation capacity in terms of infrastructure and disaster preparedness. The execution of several community-based adaptation strategies helps these barangays to respond immediately and appropriately to the moderate risk posed by floods and storm surges. On the other hand, in terms of ecosystem-based adaptation strategies, all of the seven barangays have moderate necessity which implies that they have moderate vulnerability and risk to flood and storm surge but have high adaptation capacity in terms of the conservation and protection of coastal resources (mangroves and sea grasses). The barangays implemented the necessary ecosystem-based adaptation mechanisms that they might need in the future. This only means that when they are faced with disaster, the local communities are prepared to respond appropriately and to cope up with the effects of extreme weather events which lead to floods and storm surge. Even though most of the ecosystem-based adaptation strategies are conducted by the seven barangays, there are several community-based adaptation strategies that are still lacking which will protect them from the effect of floods and storm surges. Hence, carrying out the missing adaptation strategies, both community-based and ecosystem-based, will help in improving the adaptive capacity of the affected barangays and will help them become more resilient to the amplified effects of climate change.

Extreme Weather Events and Internal Migration: Evidence from Mongolia

This article examines the effects of extreme weather events on internal migration in Mongolia. Our focus is on dzuds, extremely harsh winters characterized by very cold temperature, snowfall anomalies, and/or storms causing very high livestock mortality. We exploit exogenous variation in the intensity of extreme winter events across time and space to identify their causal impacts on permanent domestic migration. Our database is a time series of migration and population data at provincial and district level from official population registries, spanning the 1992-2018 period. Results obtained with a two-way fixed effects panel estimator show that extreme winter events cause significant and sizeable permanent out-migration from affected provinces for up to two years after an event. These effects are confirmed when considering net change rates in the overall population at the district level. The occurrence of extreme winter events is also a strong predictor for declines in the local population of pastoralist households, the socio-economic group most affected by those events. This suggests that the abandonment of pastoralist livelihoods is an important channel through which climate affects within-country migration.

Stochastic pre-event preparation for enhancing resilience of distribution systems

Extreme weather events are the common causes for power supply interruptions and power outages in electrical distribution systems. Improving the distribution system and enhancing its resilience is becoming crucial due to the increased frequency of extreme weather events. Preparation and allocation of multiple flexible resources, such as mobile resources, fuel resources, and labor resources before extreme weather events can mitigate the effects of extreme weather events and enhance the resilience of power distribution systems. In this paper, a two-stage stochastic mixed-integer linear programming (SMILP) is proposed to optimize the preparation and resource allocation process for upcoming extreme weather events, which leads to faster and more efficient post-event restoration. The objective of the proposed two-stage SMILP is to maximize the served load and minimize the operating cost of flexible resources. The first stage in the optimization problem selects the amounts and locations of different resources. The second stage considers the operational constraints of the distribution system and repair crew scheduling constraints. The proposed stochastic pre-event preparation model is solved by a scenario decomposition method, Progressive Hedging (PH), to ease the computational complexity introduced by a large number of scenarios. Furthermore, to show the impact of solar photovoltaic (PV) generation on system resilience, three types of PV systems are considered during a power outage and the resilience improvements with different PV penetration levels are compared. Numerical results from simulations on a large-scale (more than 10,000 nodes) distribution feeder have been used to validate the effectiveness and scalability of the proposed method.

Empirical estimation of weather-driven yield shocks using biophysical characteristics for U.S. rainfed and irrigated maize, soybeans, and winter wheat

Agricultural yields are highly susceptible to changes in weather system patterns, including annual and sub-annual changes in temperature and precipitation. The impacts of future meteorological variable changes on crop yields have been widely studied in both empirical and process-based models. These changes in future yields can be used in economic models to adjust future crop yields or production functions to reflect the effects of changing weather conditions. This work presents an econometric approach that combines historical weather data with the biophysical growth cycles of maize, winter wheat, and soybean to predict the year-to-year weather-driven yield shocks for rainfed crops. Temperature and modeled soil moisture are taken as predictors, allowing testing of the fitted rainfed model’s ability to predict shocks to irrigated yields by assuming irrigation produces the yield-maximizing level of soil moisture. This approach enables prediction of the potential impacts of changing weather patterns on irrigated crops in areas that are currently primarily rainfed. We present the results of the empirical model, fitted with rainfed data; out-of-sample validation on irrigated crops; and projections of yield shocks under multiple future climate scenarios. Under a bias-corrected GFDL RCP8.5 scenario, this approach predicts the average of annual weather-induced yield shocks, relative to the average of 2006–2020 annual yield shocks, across U.S. counties in the 2040–2060 period of −17% and −13% for rainfed and irrigated maize, −19% and −18% for rainfed and irrigated soybean, and −4% and −2% for rainfed and irrigated winter wheat. Predicted changes in the 2070–2090 period are −30% and −29% for rainfed and irrigated maize, −33% for both rainfed and irrigated soybean, and −7% and −5%for rainfed and irrigated winter wheat. The annual yield shocks presented here will enable modeling of the economic consequences of extreme weather events and potential for irrigation to mitigate such events.

The influence of extreme weather events on farm economic performance – a case study from Serbia

Western Balkan region, particularly Serbia, is faced with an increased frequency of extreme weather events, as a consequence of global climate change. However, there is still no enough research on how the effects of extreme weather events could be measured on the farm level. More importantly, there is no standard international methodology that is used regularly to address the issue. Therefore, the aim of this research was to evaluate the effects of extreme weather events on business performances of two the most common farm types in Serbia. To achieve this goal, the authors performed a financial loss assessment on a farm level. Panel models and R software environment were used to perform a multiple regression analysis allowing to indicate determinants of financial loss indicator depending on the farm’s production type. The results indicated that performance of both farm types is more influenced by drought than by floods. The regression analysis revealed that for both farm types financial stress is the most important independent variable.

Impact of climate change on railway operation and maintenance in Sweden: A State-of-the-art review

Increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather conditions caused by climate change can have a negative impact on rail service performance and also increases total ownership costs. Research has shown that adverse weather conditions are responsible for 5 to 10 % of total failures and 60 % of delays on the railway infrastructure in Sweden. The impact of short-term and long-term effects of climate change and extreme weather events depends on the design characteristics of the railway assets, geographical location, operational profile, maturity of the climate adaptation, etc. These extreme events will have major consequences such as traffic disruption, accidents, and higher maintenance costs during the operation and maintenance (O&M) phase. Therefore, a detailed assessment of the effects of climate change on the O&M phase requires a more comprehensive review of the previous studies reported from different parts of the world. The paper provides a state-of-the-art review of the effects of extreme weather events and their impacts on the operation and maintenance of railway infrastructure. This paper also provides a list of vulnerable railway assets that can have an impact due to extreme weather events.

Coastal Adaptation to Climate Change and Sea-Level Rise

The Earth’s climate is changing; ice sheets and glaciers are melting and coastal hazards and sea level are rising in response. With a total population of over 300 million people situated on coasts, including 20 of the planet’s 33 megacities (over 10 million people), low-lying coastal areas represent one of the most vulnerable areas to the impacts of climate change. Many of the largest cities along the Atlantic coast of the U.S. are already experiencing frequent high tide flooding, and these events will increase in frequency, depth, duration and extent as sea levels continue to rise at an accelerating rate throughout the 21st century and beyond. Cities in southeast Asia and islands in the Indo-Pacific and Caribbean are also suffering the effects of extreme weather events combined with other factors that increase coastal risk. While short-term extreme events such as hurricanes, El Niños and severe storms come and go and will be more damaging in the short term, sea-level rise is a long-term permanent change of state. However, the effects of sea-level rise are compounded with other hazards, such as increased wave action or a loss of ecosystems. As sea-level rise could lead to the displacement of hundreds of millions of people, this may be one of the greatest challenges that human civilization has ever faced, with associated inundation of major cities, loss of coastal infrastructure, increased saltwater intrusion and damage to coastal aquifers among many other global impacts, as well as geopolitical and legal implications. While there are several short-term responses or adaptation options, we need to begin to think longer term for both public infrastructure and private development. This article provides an overview of the status on adaptation to climate change in coastal zones.

Effects of climate variability on an estuarine green crab Carcinus maenas population

The increase in frequency and intensity of extreme climate events over the last few decades has been leading to profound changes in estuarine and marine ecosystems worldwide, with strong implications for the species inhabiting these ecosystems as well as for the services provided by them. In this study, we analysed the effects of climate variability on the temporal and spatial variations in population dynamics of the green crab Carcinus maenas in the Mondego estuary (Portugal), between 2003 and 2018. In this 15-year period, a greater recruitment of C. maenas was observed during drought periods, periods which was matched by an increase in secondary production. Ontogenic stage segregation was also observed, with juveniles being found mainly in the further upriver areas of the estuary. The estuarine population was mainly composed of the green morphotype, with the orange and red morphotypes present in more downstream areas of the estuary. Redundancy analysis (RDA) showed high spatial and temporal variability of C. maenas in the estuary which was related with environmental changes over the 15-year period. A correlation between C. maenas biological features and several local-scale (salinity and river runoff) and large-scale (North Atlantic Oscillation index and Eastern Atlantic pattern) environmental variables was identified through cumulative sums analysis (CUSUM), indicating a strong environmental control on C. maenas population dynamics. This paper shows the importance of relatively long-term datasets to unravel the effects of extreme weather events due to climate change on key epibenthic estuarine species, and also how they might cope with a changing marine environment.

Adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices and their influence on the technical efficiency of maize production under extreme weather events

Malawi experiences frequent and intense extreme weather events that affect rain-fed household maize production. Thus, households have adopted various climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices to cushion maize production from the adverse effects of extreme weather events, particularly drought episodes. This study examines the drivers of CSA practices' adoption and their influence on the technical efficiency of maize production among drought-affected households. Based on a conditional logit model, the study finds drought episodes substantively enhancing the adoption of organic manure by 76% and soil and water conservation by 29%. The Cobb-Douglas Stochastic Frontier Analysis reveals that households are 63% technically efficient, implying that they can increase current maize production by 37%. A two-stage Tobit model further shows that concurrent adopting organic manure and inorganic fertilizers in the same farm significantly improves maize production's technical efficiency by 18% and is more noticeable among drought-affected households. This study, therefore, advocates for simultaneous adoption of organic and inorganic fertilizers to enhance the effect of CSA practices on the technical efficiency of maize production under intensifying drought episodes. Besides, the study recommends championing gender-targeting extension services to augment the benefits of CSA practices among female farmers. Ultimately, the study results contribute to the existing literature on improving agricultural productivity under varying weather conditions.

Ecosystem services help alleviate the intensity of dryness/wetness

Dryness/wetness extremes are likely to become more frequent and more severe in the future in the context of climate change. Ecosystems provide multiple services, such as food production, water supply, biodiversity conservation, carbon fixation, air quality improvement, and other services. Therefore, they have the potential to mitigate the destructive effects of extreme weather events. Ecosystems with high service values are thought to be able to alleviate the intensity of dryness/wetness. Although this issue has gained increasing attention, the quantitative relationship between ecosystem services and the intensity of weather extremes is still unknown. The aim of this study is quantifying such relationship and the contribution of ecosystem services and their components to the reduction in weather intensities. Spearman’s correlations analysis, a redundancy analysis, and variation partitioning based on three datasets for China and at the global scale were employed. The results indicated that ecosystem services generally decrease the intensity of dryness/wetness extremes, and these effects vary across climate types and ecosystem service components. Therefore, if it is possible to increase ecosystem service values, the intensity of dryness/wetness extremes at the local, regional and global scales can be reasonably alleviated.

Projecting climate change impacts on Mediterranean finfish production: a case study in Greece

Finfish aquaculture in the Mediterranean Sea faces increasing challenges due to climate change, while potential adaptation requires a robust assessment of the arising threats and opportunities. This paper presents an approach developed to investigate effects of climate drivers on Greek aquaculture, a representative Mediterranean country with a leading role in the sector. Using a farm level approach, dynamic energy budget models for European seabass and meagre were developed, and environmental forcing was used to simulate changes in production and farm profitability under IPCC scenarios RCP45 and RCP85. The effects of temperature and extreme weather events at the individual and farm levels were considered along with that of husbandry parameters such as stocking timing, market size, and farm location (inshore, offshore) for nine regions. The simulations suggest that at the individual level, fish may benefit from warmer temperatures in the future in terms of growth, thus reaching commercial sizes faster, while the husbandry parameters may have as large an effect on growth as the projected shifts in climatic cues. However, this benefit will be largely offset by the adverse effects of extreme weather events at the population level. Such events will be more frequent in the future and, depending on the intensity one assigns to them, they could cause losses in biomass and farm profits that range from mild to detrimental for the industry. Overall, these results provide quantification of some of the potential threats for an important aquaculture sector while suggesting possibilities to benefit from emerging opportunities. Therefore, they could contribute to improving the sector’s readiness for tackling important challenges in the future.

Farm households' levels of vulnerability to extreme weather events in South-Eastern Nigeria

The impacts of climate change risks, risk management mechanisms, and the physical environment under which farm households operate play significant roles in poverty and hidden hunger dynamics in developing countries. Extreme weather events are most often triggers of changes in risk management, which also affect the capacity of households to absorb the resultant shocks. This paper based on primary data collected as part of a PhD dissertation in the Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, presents an analysis of farm households’ levels of vulnerability to extreme weather events in South-eastern Nigeria. A multistage sampling procedure was used in the selection of 120male-and 120 female-headed farm households that constituted the sample for the study. Both structured interview schedule and focus group discussion guide were used to gather data from the respondents, which were analyzed using UNDP vulnerability index. Using household adaptive capacity approach, data were collected on human, economic and institutional capacity of farmers in coping with extreme weather events. Female-headed households were more vulnerable than their male-headed counterparts to the effect of extreme weather events with respect to some of the indicators such as farming income, years of formal education, farm size, land ownership status, number of extension contacts, access to weather information, access to remittance, membership of cooperative and assistance from National Emergency Management Agency in the area. Overall, using household adaptive capacity approach, the results of the gender-based vulnerability analysis showed male-headed farming households with a vulnerability index of 0.38 while the female-headed farming households, on the other hand, had vulnerability index of 0.68. Although female-headed farm households were more vulnerable than their male counterparts, the farmers were all generally highly vulnerable to the incidence of natural disasters because of low adaptive capacity. The study recommends that government and development partners with the responsibility of protecting the environment should be gender-sensitive and redirect more effort in mitigating the negative agricultural effects caused by extreme weather events, especially among female-headed farm households who are more vulnerable.

Disaster, Debt, and 'Underdevelopment': The Cunning of Colonial-Capitalism in the Caribbean.

This article provides a critical overview of the structural forces exacerbating risk related to disasters in the Caribbean. It focuses on the historical antecedents and socio-environmental consequences of extreme weather events across the region via an anti-colonial analysis of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 and Dorian in 2019. The authors contend that the logics, practices and debts of colonial-capitalist development, neoliberal exploitation and post-independence corruption continue to reduce resilience and threaten public health in the region. They also detail the role that political economy and social geography play in the face of disasters. They end by proposing that future critiques of and solutions to vulnerability, disaster, and catastrophe in the Caribbean be more attentive to the historical trajectories of imperialism, debt and ‘underdevelopment’.

Effects of extreme weather events on child mood and behavior.

Extreme weather events (EWEs) are increasing in frequency and severity as the planet continues to become warmer. Resulting disasters have the potential to wreak havoc on the economy, infrastructure, family unit, and human health. Global estimates project that children will be disproportionately impacted by the changing climate – shouldering 88% of the related burdens. Exposure to EWEs in childhood is traumatic, with ramifications for mental health specifically. Symptoms of posttraumatic stress, depression, and anxiety have all been associated with childhood EWE exposure and have the potential to persist under certain circumstances. Conversely, many childhood survivors of EWE also demonstrate resilience and experience only transient symptoms. While the majority of studies are focused on the effects resulting from one specific type of disaster (hurricanes), we have synthesized the literature across the various types of EWEs. We describe psychological symptoms and behavior, the potential for long‐term effects, and potential protective factors and risk factors. What this paper adds Climate change‐related phenomena such as extreme weather events (EWEs) have the potential to impact mood and behavior in children.Posttraumatic stress (PTS) is the most common mental health consequence in child survivors of EWEs.PTS is often comorbid with depression and/or anxiety in this group.