{"id":482875,"date":"2026-05-13T16:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T16:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/482875\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T16:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T16:48:09","slug":"climate-change-is-creating-a-new-kind-of-weather-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/482875\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate Change Is Creating a New Kind of Weather Disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2022, the combined impact of devastating floods and a severe heatwave<\/a> caused<\/a> over $40 billion of damage and killed<\/a> more than 1,700 people across Pakistan. The catastrophe was an example of a compound extreme weather event<\/a>\u2014when multiple natural disasters unfold at the same time. According to a new study, they\u2019re going to become more common.<\/p>\n

The findings, published<\/a> today in Nature, show that the frequency of compound events\u2014such as concurrent hot-wet and drought-heat extremes\u2014is linked to cumulative CO2 emissions<\/a>. Alarmingly, the researchers predict that the frequency of rarer and more severe compound events will escalate rapidly. Based on their findings, they believe current emissions reduction targets need to be much lower to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese events are dangerous because their impacts are multifaceted,\u201d co-author Yao Zhang, an assistant professor at Peking University in China, told Gizmodo in an email. \u201cThey can impact both natural and socioeconomic systems, and the impacts often get amplified when they occur together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compounding risks <\/p>\n

The devastation Pakistan experienced in 2022 speaks to the danger of compound extremes. Heavy monsoon rains destroyed<\/a> roads, homes, and electrical infrastructure, which increased human exposure to heat and humidity. Hot, wet conditions also encouraged the spread of disease. The floods themselves were amplified<\/a> by abnormally high temperatures, which induced glacial melt and supercharged precipitation.<\/p>\n

Due to their exceptionally hazardous nature, \u201cit is important to understand how climate change, especially human-induced CO2 emissions, can change the occurrence of these events,\u201d Zhang said. \u201cThis will help us improve management strategies and raise public awareness about the need for emission reductions.\u201d<\/p>\n

To that end, Zhang and his colleagues built a metric called TCoRE (Transient Compound Event Response to cumulative CO2 Emissions). It\u2019s similar to the well-established TCRE metric, which represents the change in global average temperature per unit of cumulative CO2 emissions. But instead of measuring temperature change, TCoRE measures how the likelihood of compound extremes changes as CO2 emissions accumulate.<\/p>\n

The researchers used models to simulate how Earth\u2019s climate will respond to future changes in CO2 emissions, then calculated how often compound extreme events will occur under projected conditions. They then expressed this relationship using TCoRE, which quantifies how rapidly compound-event risk increases per unit of cumulative CO2 emissions.<\/p>\n

This revealed a near-linear relationship between historically common compound extremes\u2014as cumulative CO2 emissions rise, so will the frequency of these deadly events. However, rarer and more severe events will escalate even faster.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is mostly due to the statistical behavior of the extreme events, as warming tends to have a stronger influence on those most extreme events,\u201d Zhang explained. For example, an event that historically occurred once a decade may occur twice a decade under future emissions scenarios, while a once-in-a-century event may occur five times per century.<\/p>\n

He and his colleagues believe compound extremes are becoming more common not only because each individual event is occurring more often but also because the connections between events are strengthening. \u201cHeat can exacerbate wet conditions through different pathways, making their linkage stronger and increasing the likelihood that these extremes occur together,\u201d Zhang said.<\/p>\n

Rethinking the carbon budget <\/p>\n

According to the findings, the response of compound extremes to cumulative CO2 emissions is 37% to 75% higher than previously estimated averages, suggesting that these events will occur more frequently than projected by existing climate models.<\/p>\n

Accounting for these changes therefore necessitates a carbon budget rethink, the authors argue. If we want to meaningfully mitigate the rising frequency of compound extremes, emissions reduction targets will need to be lower than those proposed to limit warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit or even 3.6 degrees F (1.5 degrees Celsius or 2 degrees C).<\/p>\n

How much lower they need to be differs by region, event severity, and warming targets, Zhang said. But under the 2.7 degrees F (1.5 degrees C) warming scenario, his team estimated the additional reductions in cumulative CO2 emissions required to limit increases in compound extreme events. For moderately severe events, it\u2019s about 0.42 exagrams of carbon\u2014roughly 36 years of emissions at today\u2019s rate. For more extreme compound events, it increases to about 0.56 exagrams of carbon, or about 48 years of current emissions.<\/p>\n

In addition to setting more aggressive emissions reduction targets, Zhang and his colleagues urge policymakers to rethink their risk management plans, as current strategies may not be sufficient to protect people and infrastructure from the rising threat of compound extremes.<\/p>\n

They hope their new metric will support more comprehensive climate policy and negotiations. As the climate rapidly changes, understanding and preparing for significantly more hazardous extreme weather events will be critical.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2022, the combined impact of devastating floods and a severe heatwave caused over $40 billion of damage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[2860,18,440,1954,4799,19,17,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-482875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-carbon-emissions","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-extreme-weather","12":"tag-global-warming","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-science"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}