Climate Extremes and Heat Waves
Weather & Climate Extremes (such as floods, drought, heat waves, warm days, warm nights and extreme rainfall etc.) occur with increasing frequency and confront societies across the globe. Extreme weather events exact terrible tolls in human life, in social and economic stability, in livelihoods, in national security.
Predicting extreme weather patterns that associated with El Niño events, explaining the role of large-scale ocean circulation systems in abrupt climate change, and demonstrating that changes in Earth’s past climate were linked to variations in the earth’s rotation. Extreme weather and climate issues are not only among the most important research issues of today, but that they require creative solutions that cross traditional boundaries. Assessment of future changes in the frequency and intensity of weather and climate extremes using regional and global climate models.
Over the last few decades, weather and climate extremes have become a major focus of researchers, the media and general public due to their damaging effects on human society and infrastructure. Pakistan experienced the last century’s worst flood in the Jhelum River in 1992 (National Flood Forecasting Bureau, 1992, Pakistan Meteorological Department). In 1999, a severe cyclonic storm hit the coastal areas of Pakistan and India and brought devastation to the coastal areas of both countries.
Pakistan faced the country’s worst drought during the period 1998-2001 (Sheikh, 2001). Conversely, a record of 620 mm of rain fell in Islamabad, Pakistan, during 10 hours in July 2001, bringing urban storm flooding and causing catastrophic losses to life and property (Rasul et al., 2004).
1400 people were died and over 14000 people hospitalized due to heatwave in June 17th and June 24th 2015 in sindh Pakistan. The temperature in Sindh was between 45°C – 49°C). Ministry of climate change issued a technical report stating a very high heat index (measuring the heat stress on humans due to high temperature and relative humidity) (Chaudhry et al., 2015).
GCISC References:
Sheikh, M. M., Manzoor, N., Ashraf, J., Adnan, M., Collins, D., Hameed, S., … & Islam, N. (2015). Trends in extreme daily rainfall and temperature indices over South Asia. International Journal of Climatology, 35(7), 1625-1637.
*Zahid, M., Lucarini, V., Blender, R., & Caterina Bramati, M. (2017, April). Return levels of temperature extremes in Southern Pakistan. In EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts (Vol. 19, p. 15528).
