Variability in urban land-use results in microclimatic variability across a city that is not picked up by government weather station networks. Crowdsourced weather stations can fill these gaps.
In September 2020, IAG and NCAR released a report Severe Weather in a Changing Climate (second edition), which incorporated research findings from numerous CLEX researchers. CLEX feedback also led to the incorporation of a new section on connected extremes in this report, highlighting the value of research into weather extremes.
CLEX researchers and colleagues investigated how El Niños may change in the future using paleoclimate data in combination with CMIP5 and CMIP6 model runs.
CLEX and NCAR researchers explore decade-long variations in global mean temperature that are superimposed on the warming trend and find what can make short term warming trends so unpredictable.
The first comprehensive worldwide assessment of heatwaves down to regional levels has revealed that in nearly every part of the world heatwaves have been increasing in frequency and duration since the 1950’s. The research has also produced a new metric, cumulative heat, which reveals exactly how much heat is packed into individual heatwaves and heatwave seasons.
CLEX researchers found the influence of climate change and the depletion in stratospheric ozone are the major drivers over the Atlantic Oceans that shift westerly winds further south. However, over the Pacific and Indian oceans natural variations induced by sea surface temperature changes in the tropical Pacific also play an important role.
Natural variability has been found to play a role in the speed of warming of land surface temperatures. With indications that the negative Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation is now becoming positive, this suggests that the hiatus period is over and we are likely entering a phase of accelerated warming of global surface air temperatures.