Climate security

Climate change contributing to increase in extreme weather events, says expert report

Extreme weather events such as heatwaves, droughts and heavy rainfall are becoming increasingly likely to occur because of human-caused climate change. That is a conclusion of a report by climate experts that was released recently at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

“Explaining extreme events from a climate perspective” is the eighth report in an annual series published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS). Comprising 21 peer-reviewed studies of extreme weather around the world in 2018, the report is based on the research of 121 scientists in 13 countries.

Since the first report in 2011, BAMS editor-in-chief Jeff Rosenfeld says, “it feels like a century, in terms of how the science has changed.” The papers are now are much more adventurous and look to the future as much as to the past. We study extremes, he said, “because they are the way we experience climate.” This year’s paper covers not only temperature extremes, but floods, hailstorms, wildfires, rainfall, drought, and other phenomena.