Climate extremes and natural climate variability (극한기후와 자연변동성)

Stronger impacts of climate changes occur with changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather and climate events such as heat waves, cold snaps, droughts, and heavy precipitation. However, climate extremes occur at smaller-spatial and shorter-time scales, which makes it difficult to observe and simulate them and also to identify their changes in the past and future. The small spatial scale also means the stronger influence of natural climate variability such as the El-Ninõ Southern Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation. Therefore, one needs to better understand the influences of natural climate variability on climate extremes so as to isolate the anthropogenic influence under global warming. We conduct comprehensive analyses of the observed and model-simulated climate extremes using statistical methods based on the extreme value theory. We also employ probabilistic approaches (such as the Fraction of Attributable Risk) to quantify the human or natural contribution to the changes in the odds of climate extremes. Finally, physical mechanisms associated with the changes in extreme events are explored.

[“Influence of climate variability on extreme ocean surface wave heights assessed from ERA-Interim and ERA-20C reanalyses” (Kumar et al. 2016, J. Climate)]

[“Assessing Human contribution to the summer 2013 Korean heat wave”, Min et al. (2014, BAMS)]