Scientific study finds extreme weather events are linked

By Pol Allingham via SWNS

Extreme weather events are linked, according to a new study promising "forecasting on steroids."

Future weather people could rely on studying how events, such as floods and wildfires, are interconnected.

The meteorological links are believed to be strengthening over time, according to the researchers at Beijing Normal University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications in China, and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

They believe this trend, logged from 1948 to 2021, could be due to climate change and human activities.

Mapping the daily air temperature of the planet was key to identifying how intense future weather will be, and spotting areas where they will likely recur.

Southeastern Australia and South Africa were found to be particularly sensitive to extreme events.

The connections between extreme weather have particularly increased in the Southern Hemisphere over the past 37 years, the researchers said.

The team plans to use the information to pinpoint the regions at a higher risk in the future, and draw up strategies to address the impact.

Interlinked climate behavior is a field known as teleconnection, and experts say it is poorly understood but necessary to fully understand how our climate system works.

Professor Jingfang Fan, Beijing Normal University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said: “Teleconnections describe how climate events in one part of the world can affect weather thousands of kilometers away.

“Think of it as a domino effect on a global scale.

“Within just five years, we may see temperatures rising to levels that global scientists have been warning us about.

“It’s like the planet is running a fever that’s steadily getting worse.

“Our work uncovered patterns in climate events driven mainly by atmospheric Rossby waves, which are large inertial planetary waves that naturally occur in rotating fluids and cause movement within the atmosphere.

“The next step is like weather forecasting – but on steroids.

“Using what we’ve learned, we plan to predict how climate events will unfold and connect. We’re diving deep to explore why these events happen and how various climate ‘tipping points’ within our climate system might be linked.”

The research was published in Chaos An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science.