Global concurrent climate extremes exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change.

Extreme climate events more likely to coincide

31 July 2023

Extreme climate events such as heatwaves, droughts and floods are more likely to occur simultaneously at different locations around the world with climate change.

Record-breaking weather events have been happening more frequently in the past few decades, causing massive economic damage and loss of life.

Now, a researcher from Griffith University in Australia and two collaborators have analysed how often these disasters happened at the same time, over the period 1901 to 2020.

They found that the rate of simultaneous temperature extremes such as heatwaves has increased by 56%. This increase was especially marked in the tropics, where they can particularly impact vulnerable developing economies.

Human-induced global warming has increased the likelihood of these extreme events being interlinked across the globe. This highlights the need for urgent international action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and invest in adaptation strategies to deal with the impact of these catastrophes.

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References

1. Science Advances 9, eabo1638 (2023). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abo1638