Extreme weather
Encyclopedia
Extreme weather includes weather
phenomena that are at the extremes of the historical distribution, especially severe or unseasonal weather
. The most commonly used definition of extreme weather is based on an event's climatological
distribution. Extreme weather occurs only 5% or less of the time. According to climate scientists and meteorological researchers, extreme weather events are rare.
(2011) estimates of annual losses have ranged since 1980 from a few billion to above 200 billion USD (in 2010 dollars), with the highest value for 2005 (the year of Hurricane Katrina
). The global weather- and climate-related disaster losses reported over the last few decades reflect mainly monetized direct damages to assets, and are unequally distributed. Loss estimates are lower bound estimates because many impacts, such as loss of human lives, cultural heritage, and ecosystem services, are difficult to value and monetize, and thus they are poorly reflected in estimates of losses.
Heat waves are long periods of abnormally high temperatures. There is generally no universal definition of a heatwave because of the variation within temperatures are different in geographic locations. Along with the excessive heat, they are often accompanied by high levels of humidity. These two characteristics increase the relative temperature or heat index
to dangerous levels.
Because heatwaves are not visible as other forms of severe weather are, like hurricanes, tornadoes, and thunderstorms, they are one of the less known forms of extreme weather. This severe weather phenomena can damage populations and crops due potential dehydration
or hyperthermia
. Heat cramps
, heat expansion, heat stroke, and dehydration
can result in human populations. The dried soil are more susceptible to erosion, decreasing lands available for agriculture
. Outbreaks of wildfires can increase in frequency as dry vegetation has increased likeliness of igniting. The evaporation
of bodies of water can be devastating to marine populations, decreasing the size of the habitats available as well as amount of nutrition presented within the waters. Livestock and other animal populations may decline as well. Power outages can also occur within areas experiencing heatwaves due to the increased demand for electricity. The urban heat island
effect can increase temperatures even more, particularly overnight.
, a cold wave is a rapid fall in temperature within a 24 hour period requiring substantially increased protection to agriculture, industry, commerce, and social activities. The precise criterion for a cold wave is determined by the rate at which the temperature falls, and the minimum to which it falls. This minimum temperature is dependent on the geographical region and time of year. Cold waves generally are capable of occurring any geological location and are formed by large cool air masses that accumulate over certain regions, caused by movements of air streams.
A cold wave can cause death and injury to livestock and wildlife. Exposure to cold mandates greater caloric
intake for all animals, including humans, and if a cold wave is accompanied by heavy and persistent snow, grazing animals may be unable to reach necessary food and water, and die of hypothermia
or starvation. Cold waves often necessitate the purchase of fodder
for livestock at considerable cost to farmers. Human populations can be inflicted with frostbite
s when exposed for extended periods of time to cold and may result in the loss of limbs or damage to internal organs.
Extreme winter cold often causes poorly insulated
water pipes
to freeze. Even some poorly-protected indoor plumbing
may rupture as frozen water expands within them, causing property damage. Fires, paradoxically, become more hazardous during extreme cold. Water mains may break and water supplies may become unreliable, making firefighting more difficult.
Cold waves that bring unexpected freezes and frosts during the growing season in mid-latitude zones can kill plants during the early and most vulnerable stages of growth. This results in crop failure as plants are killed before they can be harvest
ed economically. Such cold waves have caused famine
s. Cold waves can also cause soil particles to harden and freeze, making it harder for plants and vegetation to grow within these areas. One extreme was the so-called Year Without a Summer
of 1816, one of several years during the 1810s in which numerous crops failed during freakish summer cold snaps after volcanic eruptions reduced incoming sunlight.
densities, which increase the number of people affected and damage caused by an event of given severity. The World Meteorological Organization
and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have linked increasing extreme weather events to global warming
, as have Hoyos et al. (2006), writing that the increasing number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes is directly linked to increasing temperatures. Similarly, Kerry Emanuel
in Nature
writes that hurricane power dissipation is highly correlated with temperature, reflecting global warming
. Hurricane modeling has produced similar results, finding that hurricanes, simulated under warmer, high CO2 conditions, are more intense than under present-day conditions. Thomas Knutson
and Robert E. Tuleya of the NOAA stated in 2004 that warming induced by greenhouse gas
may lead to increasing occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms. Vecchi and Soden find that wind shear
, the increase of which acts to inhibit tropical cyclones, also changes in model-projections of global warming. There are projected increases of wind shear
in the tropical Atlantic and East Pacific associated with the deceleration of the Walker circulation
, as well as decreases of wind shear in the western and central Pacific. The study does not make claims about the net effect on Atlantic and East Pacific hurricanes of the warming and moistening atmospheres, and the model-projected increases in Atlantic wind shear.
Weather
Weather is the state of the atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate...
phenomena that are at the extremes of the historical distribution, especially severe or unseasonal weather
Severe weather
Severe weather phenomena are weather conditions that are hazardous to human life and property.- Examples Include :Severe weather can occur under a variety of situations, but three characteristics are generally needed: a temperature or moisture boundary, moisture, and , instability in the...
. The most commonly used definition of extreme weather is based on an event's climatological
Climatology
Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences...
distribution. Extreme weather occurs only 5% or less of the time. According to climate scientists and meteorological researchers, extreme weather events are rare.
Costs
According to IPCCIPCC
IPCC may refer to:*Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, of the United Nations*Independent Police Complaints Commission, of England and Wales*Irish Peatland Conservation Council...
(2011) estimates of annual losses have ranged since 1980 from a few billion to above 200 billion USD (in 2010 dollars), with the highest value for 2005 (the year of Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
). The global weather- and climate-related disaster losses reported over the last few decades reflect mainly monetized direct damages to assets, and are unequally distributed. Loss estimates are lower bound estimates because many impacts, such as loss of human lives, cultural heritage, and ecosystem services, are difficult to value and monetize, and thus they are poorly reflected in estimates of losses.
Heat waves
Heat index
The heat index is an index that combines air temperature and relative humidity in an attempt to determine the human-perceived equivalent temperature — how hot it feels, termed the felt air temperature. The human body normally cools itself by perspiration, or sweating, which evaporates and carries...
to dangerous levels.
Because heatwaves are not visible as other forms of severe weather are, like hurricanes, tornadoes, and thunderstorms, they are one of the less known forms of extreme weather. This severe weather phenomena can damage populations and crops due potential dehydration
Dehydration
In physiology and medicine, dehydration is defined as the excessive loss of body fluid. It is literally the removal of water from an object; however, in physiological terms, it entails a deficiency of fluid within an organism...
or hyperthermia
Hyperthermia
Hyperthermia is an elevated body temperature due to failed thermoregulation. Hyperthermia occurs when the body produces or absorbs more heat than it can dissipate...
. Heat cramps
Heat cramps
Heat cramps are muscle spasms that result from loss of large amount of salt and water through exercise. Heat cramps are associated with cramping in the abdomen, arms and calves. This can be caused by inadequate consumption of fluids or electrolytes. Frequently, they don't occur until sometime...
, heat expansion, heat stroke, and dehydration
Dehydration
In physiology and medicine, dehydration is defined as the excessive loss of body fluid. It is literally the removal of water from an object; however, in physiological terms, it entails a deficiency of fluid within an organism...
can result in human populations. The dried soil are more susceptible to erosion, decreasing lands available for agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
. Outbreaks of wildfires can increase in frequency as dry vegetation has increased likeliness of igniting. The evaporation
Evaporation
Evaporation is a type of vaporization of a liquid that occurs only on the surface of a liquid. The other type of vaporization is boiling, which, instead, occurs on the entire mass of the liquid....
of bodies of water can be devastating to marine populations, decreasing the size of the habitats available as well as amount of nutrition presented within the waters. Livestock and other animal populations may decline as well. Power outages can also occur within areas experiencing heatwaves due to the increased demand for electricity. The urban heat island
Urban heat island
An urban heat island is a metropolitan area which is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas. The phenomenon was first investigated and described by Luke Howard in the 1810s, although he was not the one to name the phenomenon. The temperature difference usually is larger at night...
effect can increase temperatures even more, particularly overnight.
Cold waves
A cold wave is a weather phenomenon that is distinguished by a cooling of the air. Specifically, as used by the U.S. National Weather ServiceNational Weather Service
The National Weather Service , once known as the Weather Bureau, is one of the six scientific agencies that make up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States government...
, a cold wave is a rapid fall in temperature within a 24 hour period requiring substantially increased protection to agriculture, industry, commerce, and social activities. The precise criterion for a cold wave is determined by the rate at which the temperature falls, and the minimum to which it falls. This minimum temperature is dependent on the geographical region and time of year. Cold waves generally are capable of occurring any geological location and are formed by large cool air masses that accumulate over certain regions, caused by movements of air streams.
A cold wave can cause death and injury to livestock and wildlife. Exposure to cold mandates greater caloric
Food energy
Food energy is the amount of energy obtained from food that is available through cellular respiration.Food energy is expressed in food calories or kilojoules...
intake for all animals, including humans, and if a cold wave is accompanied by heavy and persistent snow, grazing animals may be unable to reach necessary food and water, and die of hypothermia
Hypothermia
Hypothermia is a condition in which core temperature drops below the required temperature for normal metabolism and body functions which is defined as . Body temperature is usually maintained near a constant level of through biologic homeostasis or thermoregulation...
or starvation. Cold waves often necessitate the purchase of fodder
Fodder
Fodder or animal feed is any agricultural foodstuff used specifically to feed domesticated livestock such as cattle, goats, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs. Most animal feed is from plants but some is of animal origin...
for livestock at considerable cost to farmers. Human populations can be inflicted with frostbite
Frostbite
Frostbite is the medical condition where localized damage is caused to skin and other tissues due to extreme cold. Frostbite is most likely to happen in body parts farthest from the heart and those with large exposed areas...
s when exposed for extended periods of time to cold and may result in the loss of limbs or damage to internal organs.
Extreme winter cold often causes poorly insulated
Thermal insulation
Thermal insulation is the reduction of the effects of the various processes of heat transfer between objects in thermal contact or in range of radiative influence. Heat transfer is the transfer of thermal energy between objects of differing temperature...
water pipes
Pipeline transport
Pipeline transport is the transportation of goods through a pipe. Most commonly, liquids and gases are sent, but pneumatic tubes that transport solid capsules using compressed air are also used....
to freeze. Even some poorly-protected indoor plumbing
Plumbing
Plumbing is the system of pipes and drains installed in a building for the distribution of potable drinking water and the removal of waterborne wastes, and the skilled trade of working with pipes, tubing and plumbing fixtures in such systems. A plumber is someone who installs or repairs piping...
may rupture as frozen water expands within them, causing property damage. Fires, paradoxically, become more hazardous during extreme cold. Water mains may break and water supplies may become unreliable, making firefighting more difficult.
Cold waves that bring unexpected freezes and frosts during the growing season in mid-latitude zones can kill plants during the early and most vulnerable stages of growth. This results in crop failure as plants are killed before they can be harvest
Harvest
Harvest is the process of gathering mature crops from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, or reaper...
ed economically. Such cold waves have caused famine
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...
s. Cold waves can also cause soil particles to harden and freeze, making it harder for plants and vegetation to grow within these areas. One extreme was the so-called Year Without a Summer
Year Without a Summer
The Year Without a Summer was 1816, in which severe summer climate abnormalities caused average global temperatures to decrease by about 0.4–0.7 °C , resulting in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere...
of 1816, one of several years during the 1810s in which numerous crops failed during freakish summer cold snaps after volcanic eruptions reduced incoming sunlight.
Related to significant tropical cyclones
Increasing dramatic weather catastrophes are due to an increase in the number of severe events and an increase in populationPopulation
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
densities, which increase the number of people affected and damage caused by an event of given severity. The World Meteorological Organization
World Meteorological Organization
The World Meteorological Organization is an intergovernmental organization with a membership of 189 Member States and Territories. It originated from the International Meteorological Organization , which was founded in 1873...
and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have linked increasing extreme weather events to global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
, as have Hoyos et al. (2006), writing that the increasing number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes is directly linked to increasing temperatures. Similarly, Kerry Emanuel
Kerry Emanuel
Kerry Emanuel is an American professor of meteorology currently working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. In particular he has specialized in atmospheric convection and the mechanisms acting to intensify hurricanes. He coined the term "hypercane" in 1994. In 2007, he was...
in Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
writes that hurricane power dissipation is highly correlated with temperature, reflecting global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
. Hurricane modeling has produced similar results, finding that hurricanes, simulated under warmer, high CO2 conditions, are more intense than under present-day conditions. Thomas Knutson
Thomas Knutson
Thomas Knutson is a climate modeller at the US Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . In 2004, he published a paper suggesting that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide would lead to more intense hurricanes. This finding was...
and Robert E. Tuleya of the NOAA stated in 2004 that warming induced by greenhouse gas
Greenhouse gas
A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone...
may lead to increasing occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms. Vecchi and Soden find that wind shear
Wind shear
Wind shear, sometimes referred to as windshear or wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere...
, the increase of which acts to inhibit tropical cyclones, also changes in model-projections of global warming. There are projected increases of wind shear
Wind shear
Wind shear, sometimes referred to as windshear or wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere...
in the tropical Atlantic and East Pacific associated with the deceleration of the Walker circulation
Walker circulation
The Walker circulation, also known as the Walker cell, is a conceptual model of the air flow in the tropics in the lower atmosphere . According to this model parcels of air follow a closed circulation in the zonal and vertical directions...
, as well as decreases of wind shear in the western and central Pacific. The study does not make claims about the net effect on Atlantic and East Pacific hurricanes of the warming and moistening atmospheres, and the model-projected increases in Atlantic wind shear.
See also
- Effect of sun angle on climateEffect of sun angle on climateThe amount of heat energy received at any location on the globe is a direct effect of sun angle on climate, as the angle at which sunlight strikes the Earth varies by location, time of day, and season due to the Earth's orbit around the sun and the Earth's rotation around its tilted axis...
- Global warmingGlobal warmingGlobal warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
- List of extreme weather events
- List of tropical cyclones
- List of tornadoes and tornado outbreaks
- StormStormA storm is any disturbed state of an astronomical body's atmosphere, especially affecting its surface, and strongly implying severe weather...
- U.S. state temperature extremesU.S. state temperature extremesThe following table lists the highest and lowest temperatures recorded in each state in the United States, in both Fahrenheit and Celsius.The following table lists the highest and lowest temperatures recorded in each state in the United States, in both Fahrenheit and Celsius.The following table...
- Weather-related fatalities in the United StatesWeather-related fatalities in the United States-Select annual weather-related deaths: 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 Floods 118 136...
- Rogue wave (oceanography)
External links
- Extreme weather pictures
- The Heat is Online: Extreme Weather Events
- NCDC weather events page
- Marble Bar heatwave, 1923-1924
- Severe Weather UK
- The Economic Costs of Extreme Weather Events on Society NOAA Economics
- Statistics of Weather and Climate Extremes The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research(UCAR)
- Climate Study Predicts Dire Events
- Research forecasts increased chances for stormy weather Purdue University Study