Explaining Extreme Events from a Climate Perspective

This BAMS special report presents assessments of how climate change may have affected the strength and likelihood of individual extreme events.

This fifth edition of explaining extreme events of the previous year (2015) from a climate perspective continues to provide evidence that climate change is altering some extreme event risk. Without exception, all the heat-related events studied in this year’s report were found to have been made more intense or likely due to human-induced climate change, and this was discernible even for those events strongly influenced by the 2015 El Niño. Furthermore, many papers in this year’s report demonstrate that attribution science is capable of separating the effects of natural drivers including the strong 2015 El Niño from the influences of long-term human-induced climate change.

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Table of Contents and Abtract
  1. Introduction to Explaining Extreme Events of 2015 from a Climate Perspective
  2. Multimodel Assessment of Anthropogenic Influence on Record Global and Regional Warmth During 2015
  3. What History Tells Us About 2015 U.S. Daily Rainfall Extremes
  4. An Assessment of the Role of Anthropogenic Climate Change in the Alaska Fire Season of 2015
  5. The 2014/15 Snowpack Drought in Washington State and its Climate Forcing
  6. In Tide’s Way: Southeast Florida’s September 2015 Sunny-day Flood
  7. Extreme Eastern U.S. Winter of 2015 Not Symptomatic of Climate Change
  8. The Role of Arctic Sea Ice and Sea Surface Temperatures on the Cold 2015 February Over North America
  9. The 2015 Extreme Drought in Western Canada
  10. Human Contribution to the Record Sunshine of Winter 2014/15 in the United Kingdom
  11. The Role of Anthropogenic Warming in 2015 Central European Heat Waves
  12. The 2015 European Heat Wave
  13. The Late Onset of the 2015 Wet Season in Nigeria
  14. Human Influences on Heat-Related Health Indicators During the 2015 Egyptian Heat Wave
  15. Assessing the Contributions of Local and East Pacific Warming to the 2015 Droughts in Ethiopia and Southern Africa
  16. The Deadly Combination of Heat and Humidity in India and Pakistan in Summer 2015
  17. The Heavy Precipitation Event of December 2015 in Chennai, India
  18. Attribution of Extreme Rainfall in Southeast China During May 2015
  19. Record-Breaking Heat in Northwest China in July 2015: Analysis of the Severity and Underlying Causes
  20. Human Influence on the 2015 Extreme High Temperature Events in Western China
  21. A Persistent Japanese Heat Wave in Early August 2015: Roles of Natural Variability and Human-Induced Warming
  22. Climate Change and El Niño Increase Likelihood of Indonesian Heat and Drought
  23. Southern Australia’s Warmest October on Record: The Role of ENSO and Climate Change
  24. What Caused the Record-Breaking Heat Across Australia in October 2015?
  25. The Roles of Climate Change and El Niño in the Record Low Rainfall in October 2015 in Tasmania, Australia
  26. Influences of Natural Variability and Anthropogenic Forcing on the Extreme 2015 Accumulated Cyclone Energy in the Western North Pacific
  27. Record Low Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent in March 2015
  28. Summary and Broader Context

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