5 takeaways from the IPCC report on extreme weather and climate change

This is an interesting short article that describes some of the issues we all face, given the now near certainty of global climate change: 5 takeaways from the IPCC report on extreme weather and climate change

Key points:

• Extreme weather is on the increase globally and is a direct result of human-induced climate change.
• The costs of these events are increasing as are the intensities.
• Adaptation and mitigation of impacts are possible.

Update:

Here's a more detailed summary, via The Conversation. Including:

Professor Bill McGuire, Professor of Geophysical Climate Hazards, University College London

One of the key ways in which anthropogenic climate change will affect human society is through the increasing impact of extreme events such as floods and droughts. This landmark report uses the latest observations and models to forecast what we will be up against in the decades to come. It also highlights the complex and sometimes unexpected ways in which climate change may drive dangerous extreme events, including a response from the solid Earth in the form of increased landslide activity and other geological hazards.

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science

This report should leave governments in no doubt...that climate change is, through its impact on extreme weather, already harming the lives and livelihoods of millions of people around the world. Governments must focus clearly on reaching a strong international agreement to strengthen their efforts to reduce emissions and to prepare their populations for those impacts of climate change that cannot now be avoided.

Adjunct Research Professor John Stone, Department of Geography, Carleton University, member of the Bureau of the IPCC for the 3rd and 4th Assessment Reports

Extreme events are often short lived, but the effects of these extreme events can last a very long time. So it can be very difficult to recover from one extreme event before the next one hits. In developed nations most of the damage is to infrastructure and property and we can put a dollar value on these losses. In developing world it’s often measured in terms of lives lost. You can’t put a dollar value on that. So extreme events can place a magnifying glass on people and their communities and their infrastructure.