Thursday, November 17, 2022, 16:00
WBGB/019
Erich Fischer, ETHZ
Abstract:
The 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave is one of a series of
record-shattering heat extremes that broke previous records by very
large margins and that based on the observational series, may have been
deemed impossible. Such unprecedented extremes often lead to very large
socio-economic and ecological impacts due to a tendency to adapt at most
to the highest intensities experienced during a lifetime or documented
historically. Here I address the question of whether the possibility for
a heatwave of such unprecedented intensity could have been foreseen
based on climate model information available in the years before the
event. I will discuss challenges and opportunities of understanding and
quantifying record-breaking events and different methods to assess the
potential for future events unseen in the observational record.