ON THE CONCEPT AND EMPIRICAL TENDENCIES OF WEATHER AND CLIMATE
EXTREMES
JÁNOS MIKA
ABSTRACT. - On the concept and empirical tendencies of weather and climate extremes. The recent IPCC Special Report (IPCC SREX, 2011) provides a comprehen-sive overview of meteorological extremes and their various aspects. The present paper re-sponses to the core concepts of the Report, arguing the still unclear definition of the ex-tremes, and recommend a clear classification of weather vs. climate extremes. We also dedicate a sub-Section to the statistical and physical considerations on how the extremes may change parallel to the global warming. Another sub-Section refers to further difficul-ties that hamper the empirical establishment of the trends in the meteorological extremes. Modelled results are not similarly presented, but a dicsussive chapter is given to explain why these embedded models are not yet perfect for estimating the changes in extreme events. Finally we expose the AR4 results (IPCC, 2007) on meteorological extremes at temperate latitudes, and briefly compare them with those in the IPCC SREX (2011) Report.
Keywords:
Weather extreme, climate extreme, natural disaster, climate change, IPCC