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Extreme weather events such as wildfires and floods are in fact interconnected – and certain regions of the world are considered “hotspots” for interconnected extreme weather events.
A new climate analysis map has highlighted areas vulnerable to ‘linked’ extreme weather events.
These interconnected weather events, known as “teleconnections,” “are like a domino effect on a global scale,” said Jingfang Fan of Beijing Normal University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Huge “Rossby waves” that extend hundreds of miles out into the ocean could help explain how wildfires or floods in one region can affect other regions hundreds or even thousands of miles away.
Telecommunications architecture around the world, where weather in one place can cause extreme weather elsewhere (Shang Wang, Jun Meng, Jingfang Fan)
A separate study showed that the East Coast of the United States and Central America could become uninhabitable by 2100 due to rising global temperatures. Above, a map of areas likely to see between 3 and 56 hours of life-threatening temperatures per year, if average global temperatures rise 4 degrees Celsius.
Above, a map of the regions likely to see between 3 and 24 scorching hours of life-threatening temperatures annually, if average global temperatures rise by 3 degrees Celsius.
“Humid temperatures” and extreme heat can lead to cardiovascular and respiratory problems, but the warming revealed by the new study could kill about 200,000 Americans annually. Lower elevations (above) would avoid the United States, but would still harm developing countries near the equator.
Co-author Fan said: “Teleconnections describe how climate events in one part of the world can affect weather thousands of miles away.
In just five years, we could see temperatures rise to the levels that global scientists have warned us about. It is as if the planet is suffering from a fever that is steadily worsening.
The science of these strange “interconnected” events, which can affect the weather in one place over other regions thousands of miles away, is still poorly understood.
Researchers from Beijing Normal University believe a new method of climate network analysis could help understand interconnected events.
The research was published in Chaos magazine.
Climate networks are like maps, where data points are designated as locations, and the connections between them reveal similarities.
The researchers identified sensitive areas using daily global surface air temperature data, using data processing to identify patterns.
“Our work has revealed patterns in climate events that are mainly driven by atmospheric Rossby waves, which are large inertial planetary waves that occur naturally in rotating fluids and cause motion within the atmosphere,” Fan said.
The team has identified regions that have been significantly affected by these interconnected events: regions such as southeastern Australia and southern Africa appear to be particularly affected.
These correlations become stronger over time, from 1948 to 2021, perhaps due to a combination of climate change, human activities and other factors.
The extent and intensity of telecommunications influence has increased most markedly in the Southern Hemisphere over the past 37 years.
The researchers plan to use this knowledge to identify areas that may be more vulnerable in the future and develop strategies to address these challenges.
Extreme events such as wildfires can have impacts thousands of miles away
Climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent and more intense
“The next step is like weather forecasting — but on steroids,” Fan said. Using what we’ve learned, we plan to predict how climate events will emerge and be interconnected.
“We are delving deeper into exploring why these events occur and how different climate ‘tipping points’ within our climate system can be connected.”
A 2021 United Nations climate change report warned that extreme weather events such as heat waves and forest fires that usually occur every 50 years will soon occur every four years.
The researchers warned that “tipping point” events such as the melting of the rapidly expanding Antarctic ice sheet “cannot be ruled out.”
“What used to happen once every 50 years are extreme temperatures that now happen every 10 years,” said Dr. Robert Rudd, senior scientist at the Berkeley Earth Foundation.
“With a rise of 2 degrees Celsius, these same extreme events will occur every 3.5 years.”
The report warned that droughts, which previously occurred only once a decade, now occur every five or six years.
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