\n\n“Extreme weather events of the past few years \u2014 includingthe 2022 heat wave that sent temperature records tumbling across much of Europe, and the floods that devastated Pakistan last year \u2014 have surprised some of the world’s top climate scientists with just how far they sat outside the normal range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Experts still know relatively little about when and where these types of extreme climate events will happen. Or what happens when two events, like a drought and a heat wave, hit one place simultaneously. That’s because scientists have tended to look at broader averages across regions, rather than the most intense extremes in specific locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t asked the models [to] come up with an outrageously high temperature number, like 50 degrees in Canada” \u2014 <\/strong>a mark reached during a heat wave in 2021 \u2014”and work out how likely that is or if that’s possible,\u201d said Friederike Otto, an author of the IPCC report and senior lecturer at Imperial College London. \u201cAnd I think that’s why these are surprises.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n