Human activities like burning fossil fuels continue to escalate the frequency and severity of worldwide weather disasters. The atmosphere now holds about 7% more moisture per 1C of warming, causing heavier downpours such as the amplified rainfall observed during Hurricane Melissa. Concurrently, heightened evaporation is accelerating severe droughts, causing major European rivers like the Rhine and Danube to drop to record lows and prompting drought declarations across England and Wales.
Key points
Burning fossil fuels directly intensifies extreme weather events, including prolonged hea…: Burning fossil fuels directly intensifies extreme weather events, including prolonged heatwaves and severe droughts across continents.
Warmer air holds approximately 7% more moisture per degree Celsius, triggering more inten…: Warmer air holds approximately 7% more moisture per degree Celsius, triggering more intense and destructive rainfall worldwide.
Elevated temperatures accelerate soil drying, depleting vital waterways like the Danube a…: Elevated temperatures accelerate soil drying, depleting vital waterways like the Danube and exacerbating regional water shortages.
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Many extreme weather events are becoming more common and more intense around the world, fuelled by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.
Here are four ways that rising temperatures are affecting weather extremes.
1. Hotter, longer heatwaves
Even a small increase in average temperatures makes a big difference to heat extremes.
As the range of daily temperatures shifts to warmer levels, hotter days become more likely and more intense.
Scientists use computer models to simulate how individual extreme weather events unfold in two scenarios:
today's world with about 1.4C, external of human-caused warming
a hypothetical world without human influence on the climate
That way, they can estimate, external how much a particular heatwave, storm or drought was affected by climate change.
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