Quantifying Changes in Extreme Weather Events in Response to Warmer Global Temperature

Global warming is expected to affect both the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, though projections of the response of these events to climate warming remain highly uncertain. The range of changes reported in the climate modelling literature is very large, sometimes leading to contradictory results for a given extreme weather event. Much of this uncertainty stems from the incomplete understanding of the physics of extreme weather processes, the lack of representation of mesoscale processes in coarse-resolution climate models, and the effect of natural climate variability at multi-decadal time scales. However, some of the spread in results originates simply from the variety of scenarios for future climate change used to drive climate model simulations, which hampers the ability to make generalizations about predicted changes in extreme weather events. In this study, we present a meta-analysis of the literature on projected future extreme weather events in order to quantify expected changes in weather extremes as a function of a common metric of global mean temperature increases. We find that many extreme weather events are likely to be significantly affected by global warming. In particular, our analysis indicates that the overall frequency of global tropical cyclones could decrease with global warming but that the intensity of these storms, as well as the frequency of the most intense cyclones could increase, particularly in the northwestern Pacific basin. We also found increases in the intensity of South Asian monsoonal rainfall, the frequency of global heavy precipitation events, the number of North American severe thunderstorm days, North American drought conditions, and European heatwaves, with rising global mean temperatures. In addition, the periodicity of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation may decrease, which could, in itself, influence extreme weather frequency in many areas of the climate system.     

天气和气候极端事件的变化及其与全球变暖的联系——纪念2002年世界气象日“减低对天气和气候极端事件的脆弱性”

2002年3月23日世界气象日的主题是“减低天气和气候极端事件的脆弱性”。针对这个主题,作者对以下四方面问题作了阐述：（1）天气与气候极端事件以及脆弱性的定义;（2）近百年来全球天气与气候极端事件的变化及其与全球气候变化的关系;（3）未来天气与气候极端事件及其影响的预测;（4）天气与气候极端事件的适应与减缓对策。由于篇幅有限,未介绍中国在这方面的研究。     

极端事件对人类系统的影响

在IPCC特别报告《管理极端事件和灾害风险,推进气候变化适应》中,极端天气气候事件对人类系统的影响是最重要的影响评估内容之一,其评估结果为：极端影响可能缘于极端天气气候事件,但也可能并非极端事件的后果。暴露度和脆弱性是灾害风险的重要决定因素;极端和非极端天气气候事件的严重程度和影响在很大程度上取决于对这些事件的脆弱性和暴露度水平;人居模式、城市化和社会经济状况的变化已经影响观测到的脆弱性和暴露度的变化趋势;无论在发达国家还是发展中国家,沿海人居环境均暴露于极端事件,并受其影响,如小岛屿国家和亚洲大三角洲地区;脆弱人口还包括难民、国内流离失所的人和那些生活在边远地区的人;极端事件将极大地影响与气候联系密切的部门,如水、农业、食物安全、健康和旅游业。     

Using Protection Motivation Theory to examine information-seeking behaviors on climate change

Many earlier studies concluded that exposure to changes in local weather or extreme weather events prompt public interest in climate change, and in turn raise support for mitigation policies. However, these findings do not square with observations of record-breaking temperatures, and decades of failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To address this conundrum, we use Protection Motivation Theory to form hypotheses on the specific type of climate change-related information that individuals seek during periods of extreme local weather. Using daily-level internet search engine data from Chinese cities, we find that residents are purposeful and rational in seeking information on climate change. Specifically, when faced with high or abnormal temperatures, they are much more likely to seek information to appraise their susceptibility to climate change threats, and evaluate coping responses. On the other hand, due to the lack of direct benefits, they do not seek out information on climate mitigation behaviors. In contrast to earlier studies, our findings suggest that it is unlikely that extreme weather events will prompt support for climate mitigation actions. Instead, as worldwide weather becomes more extreme and unpredictable, it is likely that public’s attention will shift in the direction of adaptation measures.     

Changes in weather and climate extremes: phenomenology and empirical approaches

The terms “weather extremes” and “climate extremes” are widely used in meteorology, often in relation to climate change. This paper reviews the empirical investigations into parallel changes in extreme events and climate change published in recent years and looks at their relevance for the global energy system. Empirical investigation into the correlation of extremes with global warming covers five groups: changes in temperature, precipitation, wind (storm) extremes, tropical and extra-tropical circulation phenomena. For temperature extremes, extensive analyses demonstrate that extreme hot days and nights will likely become more frequent, and extreme cold days and nights less frequent. Intense precipitation events will likely become more frequent in most continental regions. Scientific confidence in the trends of the frequency, duration, and intensity of tropical cyclones, is still low. A poleward shift is observed for extratropical cyclones, whereas no convincing tendencies of many smaller-scale phenomena, for example, tornados, or hail, can yet be detected. All these extremes have serious implications for the energy sector.     

Local path dependence of U.S. socioeconomic exposure to climate extremes and the vulnerability commitment

Despite improvements in disaster risk management in the United States, a trend toward increasing economic losses from extreme weather events has been observed. This trend has been attributed to growth in socioeconomic exposure to extremes, a process characterized by strong path dependence. To understand the influence of path dependence on past and future losses, an index of potential socioeconomic exposure was developed at the U.S. county level based upon population size and inflation-adjusted wealth proxies. Since 1960, exposure has increased preferentially in the U.S. Southeast (particularly coastal and urban counties) and Southwest relative to the Great Plains and Northeast. Projected changes in exposure from 2009 to 2054 based upon scenarios of future demographic and economic change suggest a long-term commitment to increasing, but spatially heterogeneous, exposure to extremes, independent of climate change. The implications of this path dependence are examined in the context of several natural hazards. Using methods previously reported in the literature, annualized county-level losses from 1960 to 2008 for five climate-related natural hazards were normalized to 2009 values and then scaled based upon projected changes in exposure and two different estimates of the exposure elasticity of losses. Results indicate that losses from extreme events will grow by a factor of 1.3–1.7 and 1.8–3.9 by 2025 and 2050, respectively, with the exposure elasticity representing a major source of uncertainty. The implications of increasing physical vulnerability to extreme weather events for investments in disaster risk management are ultimately contingent upon the normative values of societal actors.     

Shifts of means are not a proxy for changes in extreme winter temperatures in climate projections

Changes in the severity of extreme weather events under the influence of the enhanced greenhouse effect could have disproportionally large effects compared to changes in the mean climate. Here, we explored the meteorological circumstances of extremes and changes therein using two 49-member climate model ensembles for reference (1961–1990) and scenario (2051–2080) greenhouse-gas concentrations. We have focused on daily-mean surface-air temperatures over the Northern Hemisphere in January. Over large parts of the continents, changes in the one-in-10-year temperature events are influenced at least as much by changes in the shape of the probability distribution functions (PDFs) as by shifts in the mean. In coastal areas, this is largely attributable to changes in the large-scale circulation, for those types of extremes linked to infrequent wind directions. In other areas, the inhomogeneous mean warming, increasing inland and polewards, affects the tails of the local temperature PDFs. Temperature extremes in widely different regions were found to be linked by a large-scale circulation anomaly pattern, which resembles the Arctic Oscillation. In the scenario ensemble, this anomaly pattern favors its positive phase, leading to enhanced probabilities of westerly winds in a belt around the Northern Hemisphere.     

Possible impacts of climate change on extreme weather events at local scale in south–central Canada

Synoptic weather typing and regression-based downscaling approaches have become popular in evaluating the impacts of climate change on a variety of environmental problems, particularly those involving extreme impacts. One of the reasons for the popularity of these approaches is their ability to categorize a complex set of meteorological variables into a coherent index, facilitating the projection of changes in frequency and intensity of future daily extreme weather events and/or their impacts. This paper illustrated the capability of the synoptic weather typing and regression methods to analyze climatic change impacts on a number of extreme weather events and environmental problems for south–central Canada, such as freezing rain, heavy rainfall, high-/low-streamflow events, air pollution, and human health. These statistical approaches are helpful in analyzing extreme events and projecting their impacts into the future through three major steps or analysis procedures: (1) historical simulation modeling to identify extreme weather events or their impacts, (2) statistical downscaling to provide station-scale future hourly/daily climate data, and (3) projecting changes in the frequency and intensity of future extreme weather events and their impacts under a changing climate. To realize these steps, it is first necessary to conceptualize the modeling of the meteorology, hydrology and impacts model variables of significance and to apply a number of linear/nonlinear regression techniques. Because the climate/weather validation process is critical, a formal model result verification process has been built into each of these three steps. With carefully chosen physically consistent and relevant variables, the results of the verification, based on historical observations of the outcome variables simulated by the models, show a very good agreement in all applications and extremes tested to date. Overall, the modeled results from climate change studies indicate that the frequency and intensity of future extreme weather events and their impacts are generally projected to significantly increase late this century over south–central Canada under a changing climate. The implications of these increases need be taken into consideration and integrated into policies and planning for adaptation strategies, including measures to incorporate climate change into engineering infrastructure design standards and disaster risk reduction measures. This paper briefly summarized these climate change research projects, focusing on the modeling methodologies and results, and attempted to use plain language to make the results more accessible and interesting to the broader informed audience. These research projects have been used to support decision-makers in south–central Canada when dealing with future extreme weather events under climate change.     

Long-term climate monitoring and extreme events

Problems with long-term monitoring of various extreme meteorological events (including tropical and extratropical cyclones, extreme winds, temperatures and precipitation, and mesoscale events) are examined. For many types of extreme events, the maintenance of long-term homogeneity of observations is more difficult than is the case for means of variables. In some cases, however, a strategy of using more than a single variable to define an event, along with the careful elimination of biases in the data, can provide quantitative information about trends. Special care needs to be taken with extreme events deduced from meteorological analyses, because changes in analysis and observation systems are certain to have affected extremes. Also, compositing of observations from more than one station, using differences in means (of temperature for instance) to produce a single long-term site, may not remove the biases in the extremes. These problems, along with ambiguities in defining extreme events, and difficulties in combining different analyses from different sites, complicate (and perhaps invalidate) attempts to determine whether extreme weather is becoming more frequent. The best that is likely to be achieved, even with increased emphasis on attaining the high-level of homogeneity necessary in the observations, is to monitor long-term variations in certain important extreme events, in select locations with high-quality data. Regional indices of important extreme events, selected on the basis of their damage potential and capable of adequate monitoring, may be established. If, in the future, we are to answer the question “Are extreme weather events becoming more frequent?”, we must establish and protect high-quality stations capable of monitoring the most important extreme events (perhaps with such regional indices), and ensure that changes affecting the recording of extreme events (e.g., changes in exposure) are meticulously documented.     

Assessment of the changes in extreme vulnerability over East Asia due to global warming

A number of indices have been employed to describe weather extremes on the basis of climate regimes and public concerns. In this study, we combined these traditional indices into four groups according to whether they relate to warm (T_warm), cold (T_cold), wet (P_wet), or dry (P_dry) extremes. Analysis of the combined indices calculated for the daily temperatures and precipitation at 750 meteorological stations in Korea, China, and Japan for 1960s?C2000s shows increasing trends in T_warm and P_dry events and decreasing trends in T_cold events in recent decades, particularly in the northern part of East Asia. A notable regional variation is an increase in the P_wet events in the Korean Peninsula. We applied the same analysis to a 200-year global climate model simulation for 1900?C2099 using the National Center for Atmospheric Research-Community Climate System Model 3. During the 20th century, the changes in T_warm and T_cold calculated from the model data are largely consistent with those calculated from the observations, especially in northern East Asia. The model projections for the 21st century indicate statistically significant increasing T_warm and decreasing T_cold trends in extreme events over the region. Results obtained from historical archives and model simulations using our combined weather extreme indices suggest that northern East Asia will be subject to increased warm and dry extremes and the Korea Peninsula will experience more wet extremes.     

Framing the way to relate climate extremes to climate change

The atmospheric and ocean environment has changed from human activities in ways that affect storms and extreme climate events. The main way climate change is perceived is through changes in extremes because those are outside the bounds of previous weather. The average anthropogenic climate change effect is not negligible, but nor is it large, although a small shift in the mean can lead to very large percentage changes in extremes. Anthropogenic global warming inherently has decadal time scales and can be readily masked by natural variability on short time scales. To the extent that interactions are linear, even places that feature below normal temperatures are still warmer than they otherwise would be. It is when natural variability and climate change develop in the same direction that records get broken. For instance, the rapid transition from El Ni?o prior to May 2010 to La Ni?a by July 2010 along with global warming contributed to the record high sea surface temperatures in the tropical Indian and Atlantic Oceans and in close proximity to places where record flooding subsequently occurred. A commentary is provided on recent climate extremes. The answer to the oft-asked question of whether an event is caused by climate change is that it is the wrong question. All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be.     

Extreme precipitation events identified using detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) in Anhui,China

Extreme weather events include unusual, severe or unseasonal weather, and weather at the extremes of the historical distribution. They have become more frequent and intense under global warming, especially in mid-latitude areas. They bring about great agricultural and economic losses. It is important to define the threshold of extreme weather event because it is the starting point of extreme weather event research, though it has been of seldom concern. Taking extreme precipitation events in Anhui, China as an example, the detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) method is introduced to define the threshold of extreme weather events. Based on it, the spatial and temporal distributions of extreme precipitation events are analyzed. Compared to the traditional percentile method, DFA is based on the long-term correlation of time series. Thresholds calculated by DFA are much higher than the 99th percentile and the values are higher in the south and lower in the north. This spatial pattern is similar to the annual precipitation spatial pattern. There is an obvious increasing trend in the number of days with extreme precipitation, especially after the 1980s. This observation supports the point that more extreme events happen under global warming.     

A Review of Climate Change Attribution Studies

This paper reviews recent progress in climate change attribution studies. The focus is on the attribution of observed long-term changes in surface temperature, precipitation, circulation, and extremes, as well as that of specific extreme weather and climate events. Based on new methods and better models and observations, the latest studies further verify the conclusions on climate change attribution in the IPCC AR5, and enrich the evidence for anthropogenic influences on weather and climate variables and extremes. The uncertainty of global temperature change attributable to anthropogenic forcings lies in the considerable uncertainty of estimated total radiative forcing due to aerosols, while the uncertainty of precipitation change attribution arises from the limitations of observation and model simulations along with influences from large internal variability. In terms of extreme weather and climate events, it is clear that attribution studies have provided important new insights into the changes in the intensity or frequency of some of these events caused by anthropogenic climate change. The framing of the research question, the methods selected, and the model and statistical methods used all have influences on the results and conclusions drawn in an event attribution study. Overall, attribution studies in China remain inadequate because of limited research focus and the complexity of the monsoon climate in East Asia. Attribution research in China has focused mainly on changes or events related to temperature, such as the attribution of changes in mean and extreme temperature and individual heat wave events. Some progress has also been made regarding the pattern of changes in precipitation and individual extreme rainfall events in China. Nonetheless, gaps remain with respect to the attribution of changes in extreme precipitation, circulation, and drought, as well as to the event attribution such as those related to drought and tropical cyclones. It can be expected that, with the continual development of climate models, ongoing improvements to data, and the introduction of new methods in the future, climate change attribution research will develop accordingly. Additionally, further improvement in climate change attribution will facilitate the development of operational attribution systems for extreme events, as well as attribution studies of climate change impacts.     

极端天气和气候事件的变化

自1950年以来的观测证据表明,有些极端天气和气候事件已经发生了变化。全球尺度上,人为影响可能已经导致极端日最低和最高温度升高;由于平均海平面上升,人类活动可能已对沿海极端高水位事件的增加产生了影响;具有中等信度的是,人为影响已导致全球强降水增加;由于热带气旋历史记录的不确定性、缺乏对热带气旋与气候变化之间关联的物理机制的完整认识及热带气旋自然变率的程度,将可检测到的热带气旋活动变化归因于人为影响仅具有低信度。将单一的极端事件变化归因于人为气候变化具有挑战性。对极端事件变化预估的信度取决于事件的类型、区域和季节、观测资料的数量和质量、基本物理过程的认知水平及模式对其模拟的可靠性。     

全球变暖与城市效应共同作用下的极端天气气候事件变化的最新认知

近年来,城市气候变化问题引起高度关注。综合IPCC第一工作组第六次评估报告(IPCC AR6)关于气候变暖背景下城市对极端天气气候事件影响的评估,本文得到以下科学认识：城市化加剧了局部气候变暖,全球许多城市都面临更多更强的高温热浪事件;城市化使得诸多城市区域及其下风向极端降水增加,地表径流加强;沿海城市受到日益加剧的与海平面上升有关的复合型洪水的影响;城市污染物排放和不利通风的建筑结构加剧了区域污染,同时增加了地表的臭氧含量。预计未来城市极端高温、极端降水及有关洪水事件将更为频发,空气污染形势更为严峻,气候变化风险进一步加大。中国城镇化进程迅速,需要进一步加强气候变化背景下城市极端事件的观测、形成机理和数值模拟研究,以提升城市极端事件风险认识水平和应对能力。     

IPCC AR6报告解读：极端天气气候事件变化

与IPCC第五次评估报告（AR5）相比,在第六次评估报告（AR6）评估中,观测的极端天气气候事件变化证据,特别是归因于人为影响的证据加强。人类活动造成的气候变化已影响到全球每个区域的许多极端天气气候事件。随着未来全球变暖进一步加剧,预估极端热事件、强降水、农业生态干旱的强度和频次以及强台风（飓风）比例等将增加,越罕见的极端天气气候事件,其发生频率的增长百分比越大。这些结论再次凸显了应对气候变化和极端天气气候事件的必要性和紧迫性。     

USE OF A STOCHASTIC WEATHER GENERATOR IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIOS

Climate change scenarios with a high spatial and temporal resolution are required in the evaluation of the effects of climate change on agricultural potential and agricultural risk. Such scenarios should reproduce changes in mean weather characteristics as well as incorporate the changes in climate variability indicated by the global climate model (GCM) used. Recent work on the sensitivity of crop models and climatic extremes has clearly demonstrated that changes in variability can have more profound effects on crop yield and on the probability of extreme weather events than simple changes in the mean values. The construction of climate change scenarios based on spatial regression downscaling and on the use of a local stochastic weather generator is described. Regression downscaling translated the coarse resolution GCM grid-box predictions of climate change to site-specific values. These values were then used to perturb the parameters of the stochastic weather generator in order to simulate site-specific daily weather data. This approach permits the incorporation of changes in the mean and variability of climate in a consistent and computationally inexpensive way. The stochastic weather generator used in this study, LARS-WG, has been validated across Europe and has been shown to perform well in the simulation of different weather statistics, including those climatic extremes relevant to agriculture. The importance of downscaling and the incorporation of climate variability are demonstrated at two European sites where climate change scenarios were constructed using the UK Met. Office high resolution GCM equilibrium and transient experiments.     

Contrasting the termination of moderate and extreme El Niño events in coupled general circulation models

As in the observed record, the termination of El Niño in the coupled IPCC-AR4 climate models involves meridional processes tied to the seasonal cycle. These meridional processes both precondition the termination of El Niño events in general and lead to a peculiar termination of extreme El Niño events (such as those of 1982–83 and 1997–98), in which the eastern equatorial Pacific warm sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) persist well into boreal spring/early-summer. The mechanisms controlling the peculiar termination of extreme El Niño events, which involves to the development of an equatorially centred intertropical convergence zone, are consistent across the four models that exhibit extreme El Niños and observational record, suggesting that this peculiar termination represents a general feature of extreme El Niños. Further, due to their unusual termination, extreme El Niños exhibit an apparent eastward propagation of their SSTA, which can strongly influence estimates of the apparent propagation of ENSO over multi-decadal periods. Interpreting these propagation changes as evidence of changes in the underlying dynamical feedbacks behind El Niño could therefore be misleading, given the strong influence of a single extreme event.     

极端天气气候事件变化对荒漠化、土地退化和粮食安全的影响

土地是人类赖以生存的重要资源,在受气候变化影响的同时其状况变化也在气候系统中起着关键作用。IPCC最新发布的气候变化与土地特别报告（SRCCL）系统反映了关于荒漠化、土地退化、可持续土地管理、粮食安全和陆地生态系统碳通量方面的最新科学认知,并探讨了如何进行更加可持续性的土地利用和管理以应对与土地相关的气候变化问题。文中从极端事件变化及其影响的角度,结合SRCCL与其他相关文献,予以分析和总结。结果表明,在全球变暖的背景下,极端天气气候事件的变化已经并将继续影响荒漠化和土地退化进程并对粮食安全造成冲击;而土地对气候系统的反馈作用,又会加剧气候变化并提高极端事件发生的概率和严重程度。面对气候变化尤其是极端事件给土地带来的巨大压力,必须坚持可持续的土地管理,通过减少包括土地和粮食系统在内的所有行业的排放,才有可能实现到21世纪末将全球平均升温控制在相对工业化前水平2℃以内的目标,以减轻气候变化对土地和粮食系统的负面影响。     

Vulnerability of the oil and gas sector to climate change and extreme weather events

A changing climate and more frequent extreme weather events pose challenges to the oil and gas sector. Identifying how these changes will affect oil and gas extraction, transportation, processing, and delivery, and how these industries can adapt to or mitigate any adverse impacts will be vital to this sector’s supply security. This work presents an overview of the sector’s vulnerability to a changing climate. It addresses the potential for Natech hazards and proposes risk reduction measures, including mitigation and adaptation options. Assessment frameworks to ensure the safety of people, the environment, and investments in the oil and gas sector in the face of climate change are presented and their limitations discussed. It is argued that a comprehensive and systemic analysis framework for risk assessment is needed. The paper concludes that climate change and extreme weather events represent a real physical threat to the oil and gas sector, particularly in low-lying coastal areas and areas exposed to extreme weather events. The sector needs to take climate change seriously, assess its own vulnerability, and take appropriate measures to prevent or mitigate any potentially negative effects.