Correlations Between Extreme Atmospheric Hazards and Global Teleconnections: Implications for Multihazard Resilience

Occurrences of concurrent extreme atmospheric hazards represent a significant area of uncertainty for organizations involved in disaster mitigation and risk management. Understanding risks posed by natural disasters and their relationship with global climate drivers is crucial in preparing for extreme events. In this review we quantify the strength of the physical mechanisms linking hazards and atmosphere-ocean processes. We demonstrate how research from the science community may be used to support disaster risk reduction and global sustainable development efforts. We examine peer-reviewed literature connecting 16 regions affected by extreme atmospheric hazards and eight key global drivers of weather and climate. We summarize current understanding of multihazard disaster risk in each of these regions and identify aspects of the global climate system that require further investigation to strengthen our resilience in these areas. We show that some drivers can increase the risk of concurrent hazards across different regions. Organizations that support disaster risk reduction, or underwrite exposure, in multiple regions may have a heightened risk of facing multihazard losses. We find that 15 regional hazards share connections via the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, with the Indian Ocean Dipole, North Atlantic Oscillation, and the Southern Annular Mode being secondary sources of significant regional interconnectivity. From a hazard perspective, rainfall over China shares the most connections with global drivers and has links to both Northern and Southern Hemisphere modes of variability. We use these connections to assess the global likelihood of concurrent hazard occurrence in support of multihazard resilience and disaster risk reduction goals. Plain Language Summary The likelihood of global extreme weather events occurring at the same time represents a significant source of uncertainty for organizations involved in responding to natural disasters. Understanding the risks posed by natural disasters is important in preparing for extreme events. Many public and private sector organizations play key roles in managing the impacts in the aftermath of natural disasters. However, to ensure that sufficient disaster resilience is in place, in the event of single or simultaneous extreme events, we need to understand the ways they connect with processes occurring in the Earth's atmosphere and oceans. This review summarizes the connections between 16 regional extreme weather events and 10 key drivers of global weather and climate. Focusing on annual time scales, El Nino-Southern Oscillation has connections with 15 regional hazards, linking rainfall in China, the United States, Australia, South Asia, and South Africa. The Indian Ocean Dipole and the Southern Annular Mode provide additional significant sources of connections between hazards across North and South Hemispheres. We show how this understanding can be used to develop early-warning systems for multihazard disasters at a global scale, in support of sustainable development goals, and inform a coordinated response to multiple hazard occurrence.