Global Warming and Extreme Weather: Are You Talking About More Disasters Ahead?

April 7, 2025

Meet Miyani

I still remember how my horror went watching Hurricane Ian smash Florida’s coast in 2022. The sheer force of that storm was something I had never experienced before. And it wasn’t just Ian; it feels like every month brings with it another “once-in-a-lifetime” weather event somewhere in the world, one that usually follows another-devastating hurricanes, raging wildfires, terrible floods, and heat waves that are nothing more than normal.

I am sure you have seen all that, too-perhaps with the strange weather in your town, or maybe rather because you’ve lived through one of these disasters yourself. Truly global warming, or at least the reason on which we can be worried, is what we are now asking, and next what indeed shall come about.

A Real Link Between Global Warming and Extreme Weather

Let’s get real here. The planet is warming, and we are the ones who have been turning on the thermostat. The average temperature of the Earth has increased roughly by 1.1 °C since pre-industrial times, mostly the result of human activities emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere-certainly not with any love for tomorrow. I can hear you thinking, “1.1 °C does not sound so much”. Let me assure you, for our planet’s climate, it is a lot.

As Warming Pollutes Extreme Weather

What happens with the world’s atmosphere somehow getting a bit warmer to cause these upheavals? Here’s how it goes:

1.Thirstier is the atmosphere: Warmer air sucks up more water vapor (around 7% per each 1°C of warming) or you can say it has simply received from a sponge-base to that of industrial-size. The water vapor when finally released from such squeezing could pour down in rains of such intensity that one could use the Noah flood as a kiddie pool analogy.
2. Jet streams began misbehaving: The Arctic is warming at a prodigious pace, messing up the temperature disparities that enable the smooth functioning of jet streams. Consequence? Weather systems that park themselves for days or weeks. A few drops here and there for some summer blessing? Forget floods. An afternoon of sunshine after rain? Hello, drought.

3. Oceans are getting heated up: Oceans are absorbing most of the heat from global warming, acting as giant batteries for hurricane and typhoon activity. As the water warms, it provides more energy, resulting in supercharged storms.

4. Dry areas are becoming crispy: More heat translates into faster evaporation, meaning a hot breeze almost drying up the land and transforming it into a tinderbox just waiting for a spark to set off.

The changes are not just worsening bad weather, they are rewiring the definition of what bad weather means in your region.

Recent Extreme Weather Events: A Penchant for Evidence

These disasters are thus very much stamped with the fingerprints of climate change:

Heat Intensities

Summer 2023, when recorded history marked the warmest summer, is hotter for Phoenix, Arizona, which had 31 straight days above 110°F, while parts of Southern Europe had sweltering temperatures above 115°F. Extreme heat today has become the biggest killer of weather in several countries, and these are not just chilling statistics.

Intensifying Storms

Hurricane Ian (2022) quickly ramped up before vehemently hitting Florida with all the characteristics scientists are associating with the warming of the oceans. A similar manifestation of destruction by Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest tropical cyclones on record, happened when it moved over warmer waters.

Catastrophic floods

The floods in Pakistan during the 2022 monsoon season were catastrophic with about one-third of the country submerged and 33 million people affected. The scientific community is convinced that climate change has rendered the very occurrence of this disaster more likely and has, in fact, aggravated its severity.

Prolonged Droughts and Wildfires

The megadroughts unprecedented in severity have all but guaranteed the onset of massive wildfires in the American West. The fire season of 2020 alone consumed over 10 million acres in the United States, while Australia’s Black Summer, which has been raging from 2019 to 2020, ravaged 46 million acres on its territory, killing or displacing almost 3 billion animals.

Human Toll and Economic Cost

These disasters do much more than destroy assets:

Economic Effects

The economic impact keeps rising on account of extreme weather:

· U.S. weather disasters in 2022 totaled 18, each causing damages of more than $1 billion, with total losses above $165 billion.

· Annual global loss estimates from natural disasters now commonly exceed $200 billion.

· Insurers are pulling out of these high-risk areas, leaving millions without coverage.

Human Suffering

The human costs are an even graver concern:

· Heat-related illnesses and deaths are starting to rise across the world, with the elderly, outdoors workers, and low-income communities most acutely vulnerable.

· Climate-displacement-induced displacement occurs every year and causes humanitarian crises with resource strain.

· The mental health effects, including anxiety depression, and post-traumatic stress in people who have lived through disasters, are increasingly recognized as important and serious public health problems.

Meteorologists For A Day

Climate models maintain a consistent picture where the following projections hold:

· Extreme events that were once considered rare could become more commonplace.

· Certain regions may face compound disasters — for example, heatwaves that occur in * tandem with flooding.

· Some areas may come close to the limits of how adaptable humans can be when faced with wet-bulb temperatures (which indicate heat combined with humidity).

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has articulated that every fraction of a degree matters: there are greatly differing risk profiles for extreme weather events between 1.5°C and 2°C of warming.

What Are Our Options for Responding?

The good thing is we already know and have the means to tackle this from many fronts:

Mitigation; reduce greenhouse gas emissions

The long-term mitigation strategy is still and will remain, to decarbonize as quickly as possible.

· Transition to renewables such as solar and wind

· Improve energy performance in buildings and transportation

· Protect and restore natural carbon sinks such as forests and wetlands

· Promote sustainable agricultural practices associated with emission reductions

Adaptation: Resilience Building

Most of all, communities will need to start preparing for the following changes:

· Retrofitting infrastructure for extreme weather conditions

· Putting in place early warning systems in advance of heat waves, flooding, and other hazards

· Designing cities for climate resilience with the use of greener space, better water management

· Emergency response plans provision for increasingly more common disasters

Individual Actions That Matter

Yet while it is important to work for systemic change, individual choices can make sides show:

· Choosing energy and mode of transport based on carbon footprint

· Preparing homes against events with extreme weather through insulation, floodproofing, or wildfire defense

· Campaigning for climate-smart policies and leaders at all three levels of government

· Talking to family, friends, and colleagues about climate change to raise awareness

Looking Forward with Clear Eyes and Determination

Extreme weather seems to be one act in the global warming play. More than innovation and adaptation, this is perhaps one of the greatest challenges for humanity. Acceptance of scientific evidence was the foundation of community buy-in as it made hard choices for emission reductions and added resilience to future catastrophes.

Essentially, it is realism about the challenges we face and an optimistic expectation that we can face those challenges that move humanity forward. One of the most defining questions will be how individuals, communities, and nations participate in writing their own climate stories along the way. The real question is not whether we will witness more climate-linked disasters-the science says we will. The issue is thus, how will we engage with the knowledge that we do acquire in the requirements of the urgency and scale with which the moment confronts us?

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What preparations have you made for extreme weather in your region? Do share in the comments below. And for more info related to this subscribe to my newsletters.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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