Unprecedented weather events: The path ahead
With the WEF Global Risks Report highlighting extreme weather as the foremost global crisis trigger for 2024, improving our understanding and forecasting of extreme events is crucial for facing the challenges ahead and building a more resilient future. CMCC research leverages advanced climate models and collaborations to unravel the complexities of extreme events, integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, and enhancing early warning systems.
2023 was the hottest year on record, exceeding pre-industrial temperatures by 1.48°C and therefore almost reaching the 1.5°C limit agreed by Parties in Paris. The Copernicus’ annual Global Climate Highlights report, primarily relying on the ERA5 reanalysis dataset, reports that global average temperature reached 14.98°C, breaking the previous record set in 2016.
Moreover, every single day in 2023 surpassed 1°C above pre-industrial levels, and approximately 50% of days were more than 1.5°C warmer. The report hints at a high likelihood of breaching the 1.5°C target within the 12 months ending in early 2024.
2023 was also marked by a cascade of extreme weather events that left an indelible impact on every inhabited continent, as presented in the annual WMO (World Meteorological Organization) provisional State of the Global Climate report.
Tropical Cyclone Freddy in February and March was one of the world’s longest-lived tropical cyclones with major impacts on Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi. Tropical Cyclone Mocha, in May, was one of the most intense cyclones ever observed in the Bay of Bengal.
Storm Daniel was the deadliest Mediterranean tropical-like cyclone in recorded history, unleashing devastating floods in Greece, Bulgaria, Türkiye, with particularly severe impacts in northeastern Libya.
Southern Europe and North Africa experienced unprecedented heatwaves, with record temperatures reaching 48.2°C in the Italian insular region of Sardinia, 49.0°C in Tunis, Tunisia, 49.2°C in Algiers, Algeria, and 50.4°C in Agadir, Morocco.
Canada witnessed an unparalleled wildfire season, scorching 18.5 million hectares, more than six times its 10-year average, resulting in severe smoke pollution across eastern North America. Hawaii, in turn, faced the deadliest wildfire in the USA in over a century.
The Greater Horn of Africa endured five consecutive seasons of drought, setting the stage for devastating floods. In Central and South America, long-term droughts in northern Argentina and Uruguay led to crop losses and critically low water storage levels.
In the wake of a record-breaking year for extreme weather and climate events, it comes as no surprise that 2024 is poised to be no less challenging.
Understanding the risks
The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 2024 Global Risks Report, published in January, presents the risks we may face over the next decade, amidst a backdrop of rapid technological advancements, economic uncertainties, a warming planet, and global conflicts. The report, compiled from the insights of nearly 1,500 leaders across diverse sectors, including business, academia, civil society, and government, underscores the persistent dominance of environmental risks across all three assessment timeframes.
Two-thirds of Global Risk Perception Survey respondents identify Extreme Weather as the top risk most likely to trigger a global crisis in 2024, while it also emerges as the second-most severe risk over the two-year horizon. Moreover, environmental risks occupy nearly all of the top 10 positions in the long-term assessment in the report.
Keep reading this content on Climate Foresight!
Climate Foresight is published by the CMCC Foundation , a research center that develops models and predictions to study the interaction between changes in the climate system and social, economic and environmental changes. Climate Foresight is an observatory on tomorrow, a digital magazine that collects ideas, interviews, articles, art performances, and multimedia to tell the stories of the future.
