Last edited 01 May 2025

Extreme weather

A Guide To Climate Change Impacts, On Scotland’s Historic Environment, published by Historic Environment Scotland in October 2019, defines extreme weather as: ‘Events caused by weather extremes, such as heatwaves, droughts, floods, ground instability events, high winds and storms.’

Global Warming of 1.5 ºC, Glossary, published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2018, defines Climate extreme (extreme weather or climate event) The occurrence of a value of a weather or climate variable above (or below) a threshold value near the upper (or lower) ends of the range of observed values of the variable. For simplicity, both extreme weather events and extreme climate events are referred to collectively as ‘climate extremes’.’

See also: Extreme weather event and Extreme sea level.

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