Extreme Weather
Explore how Arctic warming contributes to more frequent and intense extreme weather events worldwide — including wildfires, droughts, heatwaves, cold snaps, and heavy rainfall leading to floods.
In the northern hemisphere, extreme weather events such as wildfires, drought, heat waves, floods and persistent rainfall events are exacerbated by rapid Arctic warming through its effects on:
i) Meanders in the tropospheric jet stream resulting in the transport of cold Arctic air to midlatitudes,
ii) Atmospheric rivers or plumes of warm and moist air that transport heat and moisture poleward, causing heavy precipitation and Arctic heatwaves,
iii) Significant disruptions to the stratospheric (upper atmospheric) polar vortex cause extreme winter weather in mid-latitudes.
Polar Drivers of Extreme Weather & Impact on Human Health
A review of research led by researchers from Arctic Basecamp and the University of Exeter (Naik et al., 2025) highlights how Arctic warming weakens the jet stream and alters ocean currents. These changes intensify hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, flooding and marine heatwaves – which could in turn drive up rates of injuries, fatalities, displacement, infrastructure loss, and mental health challenges.
Flooding exacerbated by polar ice melt could lead to deaths, injuries, waterborne diseases and respiratory problems, while droughts in other regions heighten the risk of malnutrition, respiratory issues, waterborne and airborne diseases and sandstorms. Meanwhile, wildfires in more northerly regions degrades air quality, causing 55,000 premature deaths annually in Arctic and non-arctic regions.
A seasonally ice-free Arctic may contribute to a rise in severe El Nino episodes – worsening heatwaves. Heatwaves increase rates of chronic disease and threaten food production. Extreme heat is responsible for a 167% surge in heat-related deaths in 2023 compared with the 1990s and a 1% rise in early term births.
Read the full report here
Climate Anomalies
The map to the left shows a summary of significant climate anomalies and events for June 2026 compiled by scientists at NOAA’s National Center for Environmental Information.
The latest science links Arctic climate change to extreme weather across the Northern Hemisphere with more certainty than ever before. Events exacerbated by Arctic warming include wildfires, drought, heat waves, persistent cold, and persistent rainfall leading to flooding.
One key factor is that a warmer Arctic is associated with a wavier jet stream through reduced differences in temperature between the Arctic and the more southerly latitudes that drive hemispheric air circulation. This wavier pattern means that areas of high and low pressure can stall, bringing both persistent dry weather as well as long-duration rain events.
In 2024, the Arctic experienced extreme heatwaves in Scandinavia, significant melt events in Greenland, and intense winter storms in Arctic Canada, driven by disrupted jet streams and atmospheric blocking. The summer of 2024 was the hottest on record globally and in Europe. Wildfires destroyed over 370,000 hectares of forest by September, while severe floods affected two million in Central Europe.
Consequently, in July 2025, Sub-Arctic regions in Norway, Sweden, and Finland recorded an unprecedented Fennoscandia heatwave with 21 consecutive days of temperatures surpassing 30°C within the Arctic Circle. Furthermore, the area burned by wildfires in Europe, in 2025, exceeded 1 million hectares. About 70% of European rivers saw below-average flows, affecting regional hydrology and agriculture.
South Asia's Extreme Rainfall and Flooding
In early 2026, South Asia continued to experience extreme monsoon-related flooding. In Pakistan alone, floods in the 2025–2026 cycle have already caused nearly 1,400 deaths, underscoring the persistence of high-impact water extremes across the region.
In 2025, prolonged and record rainfall triggered catastrophic flooding across South and Southeast Asia, killing over 1,100 people and displacing millions as cyclones converged with monsoon systems to overload rivers and infrastructure.
Heavy rains and landslides have devastated communities from Indonesia and Sri Lanka to Thailand and Malaysia, underscoring how warming oceans and altered atmospheric patterns are amplifying extreme weather globally.
Disaster Preparedness
As extreme weather events intensify worldwide, emergency preparedness is a critical frontline response. The Drexel University Environmental Collaboratory’s Emergency Preparedness resource offers practical, community-centred guidance to help societies plan for climate-driven disasters such as floods, heatwaves, storms, and infrastructure failures. Strengthening local readiness, coordination, and risk communication is essential to reducing loss of life and economic damage in a warming world.
The World Health Organization (WHO) emphasizes that many health impacts of extreme weather are preventable through risk communication, early action, and resilient health systems.
Similarly, the UN Environment Programme highlights that multi-hazard early warning systems can significantly reduce disaster losses by improving preparedness and response time.
Key elements of disaster preparedness
Effective preparedness typically includes:
- Risk assessment and hazard mapping (identifying flood zones, heat hotspots, storm surge areas)
- Early warning systems and communication networks
- Emergency planning at household, community, and institutional levels
- Evacuation routes and shelter planning
- Stockpiling essential supplies (water, food, medicine)
- Training and drills for emergency response
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, emphasizes that climate-smart disaster risk reduction must be locally grounded and inclusive, ensuring that vulnerable populations such as older adults, low-income communities, and people with disabilities are prioritized in preparedness planning.
Climate Adaptation in Practice
Heatwave preparedness: Cities like Paris and Barcelona implement WHO-aligned heat–health action plans with early warning systems, cooling centres, urban greening, and protection for vulnerable groups.
Flood resilience strategies (Europe): The Netherlands’ “Room for the River” approach restores floodplains and combines it with engineered flood defenses to reduce flood risk.
Community flood preparedness (Philippines): In Philippines, the Barangay-level disaster risk reduction committees conduct regular evacuation drills, maintain flood hazard maps, and coordinate community evacuation centres during typhoons and heavy rainfall events.
Cyclone preparedness (Bangladesh & Philippines): IFRC-supported systems include early warnings, cyclone shelters, evacuation planning, and trained volunteer networks that significantly improve survival rates.
Early warning systems: Multi-hazard early warning systems integrate meteorological data and communication networks to enable faster preparedness and disaster response. The Met Office (UK) provides severe weather warnings (flooding, storms, heatwaves) integrated with national resilience planning.
Sri Lanka Floods and Landslides
In late November 2025, Cyclonic Storm Ditwah triggered severe flooding and landslides across Sri Lanka during an intense monsoon, affecting over 1.4 million people nationwide. The disaster caused 410 deaths and left more than 336 missing, while around 233,000 people were displaced into emergency shelters as homes, roads, and infrastructure were heavily damaged.
Warming ocean temperatures linked to climate change are increasing the intensity of cyclones by providing more heat and moisture, which fuels stronger wind speeds and heavier rainfall.
Philippines Storm Crises
In 2024, the Philippines suffered six typhoons, including Tropical Storm Trami, Typhoons Kong-rey, Yinxing, Usagi, Toraji, and Man-Yi, with four of them active simultaneously in November, a first since records began in 1951. The typhoon crisis displaced over 1.4 million people, leaving many without access to clean water, sanitation, nutrition, and healthcare.
A warmer Earth combined with a moister atmosphere — from a thicker blanket of greenhouse gases and vicious feedback cycles involving the loss of Arctic ice and snow — make these storms more powerful and allow them to stay stronger. Higher sea levels, also accelerated by Arctic melting, expand the inland reach of storm surges and flooding. If we do nothing to curtail the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, we can expect to see more intense storms.
Rising Sea Levels Spell Crisis
The IPCC found that more intense and frequent extreme sea level events, together with trends in coastal development, will increase expected annual flood damages by 2-3 orders of magnitude by 2100 in the absence of costly adaptation efforts. While adaptation can be effective – e.g. New Zealand has published its own comprehensive plan – many communities in low-income or rural regions cannot fund it.
Rapid Arctic warming speeds up melting of the Greenland ice sheet that contains the equivalent of 7.4m of sea level rise, and for the past two decades has been the single largest contributor to rising sea levels. Research published in August 2022 details how Greenland’s contribution to global sea level rise is significantly greater than models have forecasted, and establishes an absolute minimum sea level rise commitment from Greenland above 27cm, a figure set only to grow as climate warms (Box, Hubbard et. al., 2022). Low-lying countries around the world, like Bangladesh, are highly vulnerable to rising sea levels.
“It’s an understatement that the societal stakes are high and the risk is very real going forward”
Nearly 600 million people live in coastal zones worldwide. As sea levels rise, they will be increasingly vulnerable to dislocation, threatening approximately US$1 trillion of global wealth. High population tropical cities like Jakarta, key grain producing regions like the Mekong river delta and low lying states in the Pacific Region and the Caribbean are extremely vulnerable as well as other coastal areas facing the threat of saltwater intrusion such as Egypt.
If all of Antarctica were to melt, global sea level rise could rise about 58m. Some of this, we now know, is unavoidable, even without further emissions–and if we succeed in keeping global temperatures under 1.5C. A new study in Nature by researchers at the British Antarctic Survey and Northumbria University, looks at committed melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). The main driver of this committed melt stems from the warming waters of the Amundsen Sea off the WAIS, which holds the equivalent of 5.3m of sea level rise. The WAIS largely comprises glaciers that are grounded beneath the ocean–meaning that warm water is melting them from underneath. The researchers show that the Amundsen Sea has become exponentially warmer in recent decades, and the trajectory of that warming is unlikely to change in this century, even if all emissions were cut. Thus, the WAIS will continue to melt from within.
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