tornado
While it’s usually easy to find a link between climate change and extreme weather events, tornadoes are an outlier. Currently, it’s not clear what the correlation is in their case. However, we do know that tornadoes are getting stronger and they are becoming closer geographically. Some people believe that in the future, we will see more thunderstorms due to global temperatures rising and, as a result, we will experience more tornadoes.
cyclone/typhoon
Cyclones and typhoons are the same type of extreme weather but they appear in different locations. As such, both of them are affected by climate change in the same way. According to experts, the rise of temperatures on the surface of the sea leads to more cyclones/typhoons. What’s more, they result in more destructive hurricanes (which is another name for them). Based on what we already know, they’re only going to get worse in the future.
wildfire
Wildfires can be a result of heatwaves and droughts. Since both of those are becoming more severe due to global warming, so do the wildfires. According to climate scientists, wildfires are going to become more widespread in the future. In fact, by the end of the century, they could rise by 57%.
drought
As global temperatures rise, the already dry areas get drier, which leads to droughts. However, they aren’t the only affected locations. Overall, droughts appear more rarely when the weather is cool. As the temperatures spike and many locations are affected by heatwaves, the evaporation gets higher, which dries out soil and vegetation. Unfortunately, in the future, we will only see more droughts.
flood
While some areas of the world will be affected by severe droughts, others will suffer from massive floods. While it’s difficult to make a clear‑cut connection between climate change and floods, experts suggest that it affects them indirectly. After all, floods can be, among other things, a result of torrential rains as well as cyclones/typhoons. Due to that, coastal cities are going to be at an especially high risk of flooding in the future.
blizzard
Many people don’t understand the connection between blizzards and climate change. After all, rising temperatures should lead to heatwaves, not heavy snowfall. The reality is, however, that a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture which results in rain or snow (in below zero temperatures). As such, while winters will become shorter and warmer, they will also bring more severe short‑term blizzards.
heatwave
American climate scientists state that heatwaves have been on the rise since the 1950s. Rising temperatures may lead to both ecological catastrophes, such as droughts and wildfires, and humanitarian ones (the human body can only withstand so much heat). Unfortunately, we will experience more heatwaves as time passes by. According to experts, by the end of the century, we’re going to see a massive uptake in global temperatures.
torrential rain
Since rising temperatures lead to more moisture in the atmosphere, we will experience more torrential rain as time goes on. Under normal circumstances, rain is good because it fills in water basins from which we drink and helps vegetation grow. However, excessive rainfall can do more harm than good since it turns into floods which are some of the most damaging extreme weather events.
dust storm/sand storm
When discussing climate change and extreme weather, we usually focus on events, such as floods, hurricanes and heatwaves. However, dust and sand storms can be as, if not more, damaging to humans and the environment. During droughts, massive amounts of dust are swept away and end up in water basins, such as the oceans. Some experts predict that it’s going to affect wind patterns and ocean currents, which may result in new types of dangerous storms.
mudslide
As we already know, climate change leads to rising temperatures and thus to more rainfall. Furthermore, an uptake in global temperatures affects the melting of ice caps. Both of these can result in mudslides in mountainous regions. In fact, some experts argue that if climate change is not halted, we’re going to experience more and more of them.