The Conversation on Extreme Weather

From contributors to The Conversation, a timely collection of essays on how extreme weather events will impact the environment—and our lives. As extreme weather events grow in frequency and intensity, climate science has made significant strides in understanding their underlying causes. In The Conversation on Extreme Weather, editor Jennifer A. Horney collects essays from The Conversation by scholars and experts that explore how climate change contributes to record-breaking storms, heat waves, droughts, and floods. These essays highlight the latest advances in attribution studies, which can now quantify the impact of human-caused climate change on individual weather events, such as Hurricane Helene's historic rainfall. Changing weather patterns interact in dangerous ways—droughts are followed by floods, cascading disasters like landslides are triggered by wildfires, and "weather whiplash" threatens crops and economies alike. As populations grow in vulnerable areas, the risks multiply, requiring collaboration among scientists, governments, and communities to effectively manage and mitigate these new realities. With this essential guide, readers will gain a deeper understanding of how extreme weather events are reshaping our world and learn what we can do to prepare for the future. The Critical Conversations series collects essays from top scholars on timely topics, including water, biotechnology, gender diversity, gun culture, and more, originally published on the independent news site The Conversation.