The Conversation on Extreme Weather

Jennifer A. Horney, Xubin Zeng, Qian Cao, Mathew Barlow, Krishna Rao, Alexandra Konings, Marta Yebra, Noah Diffenbaugh, Park Williams, Farshid Vahedifard, Amir Aghakouchak, Michael A. Rawlin, Richard B. (Ricky) Rood, Amir Aghakouchak, A. R. Siders, Allison Reilly, Deb Niemeier, Paul Chinowsky, Derek Lemoine, Melanie G

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781421452029
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Global Warming & Climate Change

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Series Editor Foreword
• Preface
• Part I. The Science of Extreme Weather
• 1. Is Climate Change to Blame for Extreme Weather Events? Attribution Science Says Yes, for Some—Here’s How It Works
• 2. What Is an Atmospheric River? With Flooding and Mudslides in California, a Hydrologist Explains the Good and Bad of These Storms and How They’re Changing
• 3. Climate Change Is Intensifying the Water Cycle, Bringing More Powerful Storms and Flooding—Here’s What the Science Shows
• 4. The Fastest Population Growth in the West’s Wildland-Urban Interface Is in Areas Most Vulnerable to Wildfires
• 5. The Risk of “Cascading” Natural Disasters Is on the Rise
• 6. Why a Warming Climate Can Bring Bigger Snowstorms
• 7. Ice Storms, Downpours, Heavy Snow, No Snow: Diagnosing “Warming Winter Syndrome”
• 8. Atmospheric Rivers over California’s Wildfire Burn Scars Raise Fears of Deadly Mudslides—This Is What Cascading Climate Disasters Look Like
• Part II. Economy and Infrastructure
• 9. It’s Time to Overhaul US Disaster Policy—Here’s How
• 10. Intense Heat and Flooding Are Wreaking Havoc on Power and Water Systems as Climate Change Batters America’s Aging Infrastructure
• 11. 4 Ways Extreme Heat Hurts the Economy
• 12. Why Insurance Companies Are Pulling out of California and Florida, and How to Fix Some of the Underlying Problems
• 13. Climate Change Is a Fiscal Disaster for Local Governments: Our Study Shows How It’s Testing Communities in Florida
• 14. Heat Waves Hit the Poor Hardest—Calculating the Rising Impact on Those Least Able to Adapt to the Warming Climate
• 15. Climate Change Hits Indebted Businesses Hardest, New Research Suggests
• Part III. Health and Environment
• 16. 8 Billion People: Four Ways Climate Change and Population Growth Combine to Threaten Public Health, with Global Consequences
• 17. North America’s Summer of Wildfire Smoke: 2023 Was Only the Beginning
• 18. Extreme Heat and Air Pollution Can Be Deadly, with the Health Risk Together Worse than Either Alone
• 19. Extreme Heat Is Particularly Hard on Older Adults—an Aging Population and Climate Change Put Ever More People at Risk
• 20. Neurotoxins in the Environment Are Damaging Human Brain Health—and More Frequent Fires and Floods May Make the Problem Worse
• 21. Extreme Weather May Help Invasive Species Outcompete Native Animals
• 22. The Chickadee in the Snowbank: A “Canary in the Coal Mine” for Climate Change in the Sierra Nevada Mountains
• 23. Climate Change Is Already Forcing Lizards, Insects, and Other Species to Evolve—and Most Can’t Keep Up
• 24. How a Thumb-Sized Climate Migrant with a Giant Crab Claw Is Disrupting the Northeast’s Great Marsh Ecosystem
• 25. The Heroic Effort to Save Florida’s Coral Reef from Extreme Ocean Heat as Corals Bleach across the Caribbean
• Part IV.Housing and Education
• 26. 4 Reasons Affordable Housing Is Slow to Recover after Disasters like Hurricanes, and What Communities Can Do about It
• 27. Human Exposure to Wildfires Has More than Doubled in Two Decades—Who Is at Risk Might Surprise You
• 28. When Homes Flood, Who Gets FEMA Buyouts and Where Do They Go? We Mapped Thousands of Moves and Found Distance and Race Both Play a Role
• 29. As Heat Waves Intensify, Tens of Thousands of US Classrooms Will Be Too Hot for Students to Learn In
• 30. Coastal Home Buyers Are Ignoring Rising Flood Risks, despite Clear Warnings and Rising Insurance Premiums
• 31. Historic Flooding in Fort Lauderdale Was a Sign of Things to Come—a Look at Who Is Most at Risk and How to Prepare
• 32. Tornadoes, Wildfires, and Other Disasters Tell a Story of Vulnerability and Recovery in America
• Part V.Solutions and Civic Response
• 33. Hurricanes, Wildfires, Tornadoes, Floods—Whatever Your Local Risk, Here’s How to Be More Weather-Ready
• 34. Saving Lives from Extreme Heat: Lessons from the Deadly 2021 Pacific Northwest Heat Wave
• 35. How Ghost Streams and Redlining’s Legacy Lead to Unfairness in Flood Risk, in Detroit and Elsewhere
• 36. Wildfire Smoke Leaves Harmful Gases in Floors and Walls—Air Purifiers Aren’t Enough, but You Can Clean It Up
• 37. Looking for a US “Climate Haven” Away from Disaster Risks? Good Luck Finding One
• 38. What Western States Can Learn from Native American Wildfire Management Strategies
• 39. Louisiana’s Coastal Cultures Are Threatened by the Very Plans Meant to Save Their Wetlands and Barrier Islands
• 40. Keeping Your Cool in a Warming World: 8 Steps to Help Manage Eco-anxiety
• Contributors
• Index