Tag Archives: Extreme Events

PLEA Network

13 March 2018, Munich RE, Natural disasters in 2017 were a sign of things to come – New coverage concepts are needed. 2017 was a wake-up call. After a number of relatively benign years, natural disasters in 2017 caused overall losses of … Continue reading →

PLEA Network

26 February 2018, Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Really extreme’ global weather event leaves scientists aghast. Climate scientists are used to seeing the range of weather extremes stretched by global warming but few episodes appear as remarkable as this week’s unusual heat over the Arctic. Zack Labe, a researcher at the University of California at Irvine, said average daily temperatures above the northern latitude of 80 degrees have broken away from any previous recordings in the past 60 years. Read More here ALSO 28 February 2018, The Guardian; Record warmth in the Arctic this month could yet prove to be a freak occurrence, but experts warn the warming event is unprecedented Read More here

PLEA Network

11 January 2018, Yale Climate Connections, Bomb-cyclone’ weather in a warming world. This month’s Yale Climate Connections ‘This is not Cool’ video offers a plain-English science-based response to the inevitable ‘So much for climate change’ weather riddle. With New England, much of the middle Atlantic region, and parts of the southeast extending well into Florida suffering through late December-, early January-punishing cold temperatures, and in a number of places, record night-time lows and heavy snowfalls – the inevitable “so much for global warming” argument seemed certain to arise. On the one hand there were analytical news stories such as The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang’s story headlined “Historic ‘bomb cyclone’ unleashes blizzard conditions from coastal Virginia to New England. Frigid air to follow.” There also was President Trump’s “we could use a little more of that good old global warming” tweet from his “balmy Mar a Lago” residence looking forward to a frigidly cold New Years Eve dropping of the 2018 ball at Times Square in New York City. So how then to explain such not-at-all-unusual experience of cold weather temperatures even as the global temperatures continue rising? (One can safely anticipate having to explain cool summer-time daily temperatures in some places as the world continues warming.) To some extent, it’s a simple question of needing to repeatedly explain the difference between weather (short term and local) and climate (long term and global). Read More here

PLEA Network

11  January 2018, The Conversation, Explainer: ‘bomb cyclones’ – the intense winter storms that hit the US (and Australia too). The eastern United States experienced a very severe winter storm last week, which caused damaging winds, heavy snow and the highest tide on record for Boston. Meteorologists call this type of storm a “bomb cyclone”, or simply a “bomb”. But what is it? A “bomb” is an old meteorological term for a low-pressure system outside the tropics (that is, an extratropical cyclone) that intensifies very rapidly, based on how fast the atmospheric pressure drops at the centre of the storm. A common benchmark is a drop of 24 hectopascals (hPa) over 24 hours, although this varies slightly with latitude. The recent bomb in the US had a reported pressure drop of 59hPa over 24 hours, making it one of the strongest such storms ever recorded. Read More here