Water

How extreme weather conditions could last longer due to climate change

People relax in the sun near the fountains at Trocadero as unusually warm temperatures hit Paris March 16, 2012.  REUTERS/Benoit Tessier   (FRANCE - Tags: SOCIETY ENVIRONMENT TRAVEL) - PM1E83G1DRO01

In 2018, Europe experienced a severe and long-lasting drought, extending over the whole summer. Image: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

Peter Pfleiderer
Researcher, Humboldt University
Kai Kornhuber
Postdoctoral researcher, Earth Institute, Columbia University
Carl-Friedrich Schleussner
Research group leader, Humboldt University
Dim Coumou
Associate Professor of extreme weather and climate change, VU Amsterdam
Share:
Our Impact
The Big Picture
Explore and monitor how Water is affecting economies, industries and global issues
A hand holding a looking glass by a lake
Crowdsource Innovation
Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale
Stay up to date:

Water

Illustration of the persistence metrics in our study for Berlin in 2018 (left) and Paris in 2016 (right). Top: Daily temperatures (grey line) and temperature anomalies relative to the daily average (red). Middle: Daily precipitation, in millimetres, and the identified states: rain days in blue for above 5mm and dry days in orange for below 1mm. Bottom: Resulting periods of consecutive warm (red), dry (orange), dry-warm (purple) and rain (blue) periods. In the right-hand panels, the vertical blue line indicates the date of the Seine flooding in 2016. Image: Pfleiderer et al. (2019)
Relative change in the probability that a given period in a given region exceeds 14 warm days (upper left quadrants), 14 dry days (upper right), 14 dry-and-warm days (lower left) and seven rain days (lower right). Purple shading indicates an increase in persistence, green a decrease. Only regions for which changes are found to be significant and models agree on the direction of the change are shown, while others are left white. Identified drivers such as weakening storm tracks, soil-moisture and changes in the number of dry and rain days are indicated by symbols. See the publication for further details. Image: Adapted from Pfleiderer et al. (2019).
Have you read?
Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

Sign up for free

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Related topics:
WaterClimate Change
Share:
World Economic Forum logo
Global Agenda

The Agenda Weekly

A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda

Subscribe today

You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.

Why addressing the climate crisis at our poles is key to achieving Sustainable Development Goals

Gail Whiteman

September 20, 2023

About Us

Events

Media

Partners & Members

  • Join Us

Language Editions

Privacy Policy & Terms of Service

© 2023 World Economic Forum