After decades of uncertainty, a panel of experts at the University of Virginia pronounced climate change to be directly linked with extreme weather events during the virtual Extreme Weather Events & A Changing Environment webinar.
The webinar, hosted by UVA Lifetime Learning and UVA’s Environmental Institute, had panelists discuss the rise of extreme weather events — such as storms and flooding, heatwaves, or extended droughts — along with its scientific causes, impacts, and solutions.
The panel was moderated by UVA Environmental Institute director Karen McGlathery. Panelists included Kathleen Schiro, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, Johnathan Colmer, assistant professor in the Department of Economics, and Elizabeth Andrews, Environmental Sustainability and Resilience Practitioner Fellow for the UVA Environmental Institute.
McGlathery reports that 85% of the world has experienced an extreme weather event causing 2 million deaths, with the most intense events being in developing countries. In 2022, the US experienced 18 natural disasters and $165 billion in damage.
“Extremes are already more extreme,” Schiro said.
Schiro notes that climate models have gradually been able to attribute increases in global temperatures to greenhouse gas emissions. She finds that these emissions have also increased the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.
According to Schiro, these models have been developed through paired statistical testing and the process has become greatly improved. Attributions are now more coordinated through similar thresholds among different research groups and now include multiple attributions, often following the immediate aftermath of an extreme event to help draw the public’s attention to climate change.
Panelists also discussed the impact of extreme weather events on vulnerable people through explaining the economics behind climate change.
Historically, people affected by extreme weather events are predominantly elderly, poor, and black, according to Colmer, an environmental economist. This can be attributed to climate factors such as location; mortality is substantially higher in impervious places and in the absence of tree canopies.
“There are consequences to everything we do or don't do, we have to think carefully about the options available to us and make informed decisions,” Colmer said.
The global climate faces multiple risks at once. Electoral cycles are becoming shorter, making it harder for politicians to focus on the future. This creates an uncertainty in governments surrounding their obligations to address extreme weather events.
“We have to think about the future, we’re not very good at that,” Andrews said.
Andrews also warned of the “heat doom loop,” a cyclical chain reaction where the use of air conditioning creates carbon emissions that contribute to the need for more air conditioning.
Standards and stricter building codes are needed when planning new and undeveloped lands. Andrews recommended disclosing flooding history and building buffers for floods and wildfires.
To bring hope regarding how climate change can be addressed, she encouraged students to research climate change and extreme weather events.
“If we actually research the risk for our properties and communities and talk to our neighbors and talk to our elected officials in our local community, then we can make some change,” Andrews said.
1. UVA Engagement. (2023). Extreme weather events & A changing environment [Video]. In YouTube. https://youtu.be/htOljKTv8aM?feature=shared.