Articles | Volume 14, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-1081-2023
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https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-1081-2023
ESD Ideas
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18 Oct 2023
ESD Ideas | Highlight paper |  | 18 Oct 2023

ESD Ideas: Translating historical extreme weather events into a warmer world

Ed Hawkins, Gilbert P. Compo, and Prashant D. Sardeshmukh

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An observational record of global gridded near surface air temperature change over land and ocean from 1781
Colin Peter Morice, David I. Berry, Richard C. Cornes, Kathryn Cowtan, Thomas Cropper, Ed Hawkins, John J. Kennedy, Timothy J. Osborn, Nick A. Rayner, Beatriz R. Rivas, Andrew P. Schurer, Michael Taylor, Praveen R. Teleti, Emily J. Wallis, Jonathan Winn, and Elizabeth C. Kent
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-500,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-500, 2024
Preprint under review for ESSD
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GC Insights: Communicating long-term changes in local climate risk using a physically plausible causal chain
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River flow in the near future: a global perspective in the context of a high-emission climate change scenario
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Rescuing historical weather observations improves quantification of severe windstorm risks
Ed Hawkins, Philip Brohan, Samantha N. Burgess, Stephen Burt, Gilbert P. Compo, Suzanne L. Gray, Ivan D. Haigh, Hans Hersbach, Kiki Kuijjer, Oscar Martínez-Alvarado, Chesley McColl, Andrew P. Schurer, Laura Slivinski, and Joanne Williams
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 1465–1482, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-1465-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-1465-2023, 2023
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The modelled climatic response to the 18.6-year lunar nodal cycle and its role in decadal temperature trends
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Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 443–455, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-443-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-443-2023, 2023
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Related subject area

Topics: Atmosphere | Interactions: Human/Earth system interactions | Methods: Earth system and climate modeling
Modeling 2020 regulatory changes in international shipping emissions helps explain anomalous 2023 warming
Ilaria Quaglia and Daniele Visioni
Earth Syst. Dynam., 15, 1527–1541, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-1527-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-1527-2024, 2024
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Cited articles

Cattiaux, J., Vautard, R., Cassou, C., Yiou, P., Masson-Delmotte, V., and Codron, F.: Winter 2010 in Europe: A cold extreme in a warming climate, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, 20704, https://doi.org/10.1029/2010GL044613, 2010. 
Compo, G. P. and Sardeshmukh, P. D.: Oceanic influences on recent continental warming, Clim. Dynam., 32, 333–342, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-008-0448-9, 2009. 
Faranda, D., Bourdin, S., Ginesta, M., Krouma, M., Noyelle, R., Pons, F., Yiou, P., and Messori, G.: A climate-change attribution retrospective of some impactful weather extremes of 2021, Weather and Climate Dynamics, 3, 1311–1340, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-3-1311-2022, 2022. 
Ginesta, M., Yiou, P., Messori, G., and Faranda, D.: A methodology for attributing severe extratropical cyclones to climate change based on reanalysis data: the case study of storm Alex 2020, Clim. Dynam., 61, 229–253, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06565-x, 2023. 
Hawkins, E.: Ulysses Storm Data v2.0, Zenodo [data set], https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7838018, 2023. 
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This paper proposes a novel method for translating past observed extreme weather events into current or future climates. It illustrates this with the analysis of an extreme windstorm that occurred in 1903. The latter storm would likely be more damaging if it occurred today rather than 120 years ago.
Short summary
Adapting to climate change requires an understanding of how extreme weather events are changing. We propose a new approach to examine how the consequences of a particular weather pattern have been made worse by climate change, using an example of a severe windstorm that occurred in 1903. When this storm is translated into a warmer world, it produces higher wind speeds and increased rainfall, suggesting that this storm would be more damaging if it occurred today rather than 120 years ago.
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