Recent examples of extreme weather have been linked to climate change – and they’re said to be happening sooner than expected.
Prof Sir David King, who advised the UK government on scientific issues for almost eight years, described extreme events like heatwaves and hurricanes as “scary”. “We predicted temperatures would rise, but we didn’t foresee these sorts of extreme events we’re getting so soon,” Prof King told the BBC.
Climate change experts say that climate models, which use mathematical formulas to work out what might happen, have been successful in predicting the rise in the global temperature.
However, the models aren’t advanced enough to forecast events like the heatwave Europe experienced this year or the very recent hurricane Dorian which swept across the Bahamas.
Other examples of extreme weather include ice melting at the North and South poles , droughts and floods in Tasmania, Arctic wildfires and cyclones in Mozambique.