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upstart [soylentnews.org] writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Global warming influence on extreme weather events has been frequently underestimated [phys.org]:

March 18, 2020

Global warming influence on extreme weather events has been frequently underestimated

A new Stanford study reveals that a common scientific approach of predicting the likelihood of future extreme weather events by analyzing how frequently they occurred in the past can lead to significant underestimates—with potentially significant consequences for people's lives.

Stanford climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh found that predictions that relied only on historical observations underestimated by about half the actual number of extremely hot days in Europe and East Asia, and the number of extremely wet days in the U.S., Europe and East Asia.

The paper, published March 18 in Science Advances, illustrates how even small increases in global warming can cause large upticks in the probability of extreme weather events, particularly heat waves and heavy rainfall. The new results analyzing climate change connections to unprecedented weather events could help to make global risk management more effective.

"We are seeing year after year how the rising incidence of extreme events is causing significant impacts on people and ecosystems," Diffenbaugh said. "One of the main challenges in becoming more resilient to these extremes is accurately predicting how the global warming that's already happened has changed the odds of events that fall outside of our historical experience."

A changing world

For decades, engineers, land-use planners and risk managers have used historical weather observations from thermometers, rain gauges and satellites to calculate the probability of extreme events. Those calculations—meant to inform projects ranging from housing developments to highways—have traditionally relied on the assumption that the risk of extremes could be assessed using only historical observations. However, a warming world has made many extreme weather events more frequent, intense and widespread, a trend that is likely to intensify, according to the U.S. government.

Scientists trying to isolate the influence of human-caused climate change on the probability and/or severity of individual weather events have faced two major obstacles. There are relatively few such events in the historical record, making verification difficult, and global warming is changing the atmosphere and ocean in ways that may have already affected the odds of extreme weather conditions.

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