Comunicando eventos extremos e mudanças climáticas

The document explains the methodology of extreme event attribution, which calculates how much climate change has altered the probability and intensity of specific weather events. It warns journalists against three common errors: ignoring climate change, attributing events without evidence, or citing it as the sole cause. The guide provides detailed analysis for heatwaves, floods, tropical cyclones, snowstorms, droughts, and wildfires, noting that while heatwaves are universally linked to global warming, other events like droughts and floods have more complex, region-specific relationships with climate change. It emphasizes that disasters are the result of both extreme weather and societal vulnerability, such as poor urban planning or water management.

• Extreme event attribution studies use climate models to compare the modern, human-warmed climate with a hypothetical pre-industrial climate to determine if a specific event was made more likely or intense due to climate change.
• Heatwaves are the most straightforward events to attribute; every heatwave globally is now more likely and stronger because of human-caused climate change.
• While the total annual number of tropical cyclones has not changed, climate change has increased the occurrence of the most intense and destructive storms and substantially increased their extreme rainfall.
• Extreme cold events worldwide have decreased in both probability and intensity due to climate change, although they remain possible due to natural variability.
• Droughts are becoming more common and severe due to climate change only in specific areas, including Europe, the Mediterranean, southern Africa, Central and East Asia, southern Australia, and western North America.
• Societal vulnerability, such as poor infrastructure, lack of permeable paving, and inadequate water management, determines whether an extreme weather event becomes a disaster.

APA

Clarke, B., & Otto, F. (n.d.). Comunicando eventos extremos e mudanças climáticas. World Weather Attribution. https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/wp-content/uploads/PT_WWA-Comunicando-eventos-extremos-e-mudancas-climaticas.pdf

Chicago

Clarke, Ben, and Friederike Otto. Comunicando eventos extremos e mudanças climáticas. World Weather Attribution, n.d. https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/wp-content/uploads/PT_WWA-Comunicando-eventos-extremos-e-mudancas-climaticas.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Clarke |first1=Ben |last2=Otto |first2=Friederike |title=Comunicando eventos extremos e mudanças climáticas |publisher=World Weather Attribution |url=https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/wp-content/uploads/PT_WWA-Comunicando-eventos-extremos-e-mudancas-climaticas.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{clarkendcomunicando, author = {Clarke, Ben and Otto, Friederike}, title = {{Comunicando eventos extremos e mudanças climáticas}}, institution = {World Weather Attribution}, url = {https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/wp-content/uploads/PT_WWA-Comunicando-eventos-extremos-e-mudancas-climaticas.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }