Extreme Events: Understanding Climate Change

This lecture explores extreme events in the context of climate change, defining extreme weather events and their occurrence above threshold values. It delves into the wide range of scales and imprecise language used in climate science, highlighting the impact of rare events on disaster risk. The lecture discusses the transition from weather to climate, emphasizing the increase in mean temperatures and the shift towards more hot weather. It also covers the challenges in defining extreme events, the spatial and temporal dimensions of climate extremes, and the spatial characteristics of heatwaves. The lecture concludes with a focus on droughts, their various types, and the indices used to measure their severity, duration, and frequency.