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Listen "Friederike Otto - Extreme weather events and climate change"
Episode Synopsis
We have 1°C of global warming, but what does that entail? The answer is that the likelihood and intensity of extreme weather events are changing.
About Friederike Otto
"I’m Senior Lecturer in Climate Science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London and Honorary Research Associate of the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford.
I work on answering the question of whether and to what extent human-induced climate change alters the likelihood and intensity of extreme weather events and, in particular, how these changes and extreme events affect people across the world."
Current manifestations of climate change
The way climate change manifests is not through global mean temperature, as is usually assumed: average global temperature is just an indicator of climate change. We have 1°C of global warming, but what does that entail? The answer is that the likelihood and intensity of extreme weather events are changing.
The reason for that is twofold. On the one hand, there is the thermodynamic effect, which means that we have more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere because of the burning of fossil fuels. Because of these gases, the atmosphere overall gets warmer – which is currently the 1°C we’ve measured in global warming. A warmer atmosphere means that, on average, you have a higher likelihood of heatwaves occurring and a lower likelihood of cold waves occurring. At the same time, with a warmer climate, the atmosphere can hold more water vapour, which will be released back to Earth in the form of rain. As a consequence, in a warmer climate you have more extreme rainfall.
This warming effect works in combination with a second effect known as the dynamic effect. In a nutshell, because we have changed the composition of the atmosphere through greenhouse gases and more water vapour, we have also changed how the atmospheric circulation behaves. This means we’ve changed how weather systems move and where they develop.
Key Points
• The way climate change manifests is not through global mean temperature but through an increase in the frequence and the intensity of extreme weather events.
• The change in extreme weather events is a combination of two effects: the thermodynamic effect (more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere) and the dynamic effect (change in the atmospheric circulation).
• By burning fossil fuels, we have changed the composition of the atmosphere through greenhouse gases and more water vapour and also changed how the atmospheric circulation behaves. This means we’ve changed how weather systems move and where they develop.
• These effects can be very different depending on the part of the world where they take place and the season we’re in. These two effects would either cancel each other or both effects could work in the same direction.
• While on the global scale we can say we have more heatwaves and more extreme rainfall, whether that matters very much depends on what kind of extreme events the community is vulnerable to.
About Friederike Otto
"I’m Senior Lecturer in Climate Science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London and Honorary Research Associate of the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford.
I work on answering the question of whether and to what extent human-induced climate change alters the likelihood and intensity of extreme weather events and, in particular, how these changes and extreme events affect people across the world."
Current manifestations of climate change
The way climate change manifests is not through global mean temperature, as is usually assumed: average global temperature is just an indicator of climate change. We have 1°C of global warming, but what does that entail? The answer is that the likelihood and intensity of extreme weather events are changing.
The reason for that is twofold. On the one hand, there is the thermodynamic effect, which means that we have more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere because of the burning of fossil fuels. Because of these gases, the atmosphere overall gets warmer – which is currently the 1°C we’ve measured in global warming. A warmer atmosphere means that, on average, you have a higher likelihood of heatwaves occurring and a lower likelihood of cold waves occurring. At the same time, with a warmer climate, the atmosphere can hold more water vapour, which will be released back to Earth in the form of rain. As a consequence, in a warmer climate you have more extreme rainfall.
This warming effect works in combination with a second effect known as the dynamic effect. In a nutshell, because we have changed the composition of the atmosphere through greenhouse gases and more water vapour, we have also changed how the atmospheric circulation behaves. This means we’ve changed how weather systems move and where they develop.
Key Points
• The way climate change manifests is not through global mean temperature but through an increase in the frequence and the intensity of extreme weather events.
• The change in extreme weather events is a combination of two effects: the thermodynamic effect (more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere) and the dynamic effect (change in the atmospheric circulation).
• By burning fossil fuels, we have changed the composition of the atmosphere through greenhouse gases and more water vapour and also changed how the atmospheric circulation behaves. This means we’ve changed how weather systems move and where they develop.
• These effects can be very different depending on the part of the world where they take place and the season we’re in. These two effects would either cancel each other or both effects could work in the same direction.
• While on the global scale we can say we have more heatwaves and more extreme rainfall, whether that matters very much depends on what kind of extreme events the community is vulnerable to.
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