Welcome to this mini-series giving teaching ideas for Carbon Brief’s Extreme Weather Attribution Interactive Map. A little while ago I made a #GeogramblingsReacts video on the map’s release. If you haven’t heard of Carbon Brief or their extreme event attribution interactive map before, then best give the short video below a watch before you go on. We’ll cover ideas and resources for how to use the interactive map to teach:

1. How climate change is impacting extreme weather event trends
2. UK and non-UK case studies of extreme weather events

youtu.be/c605kJjnpno

So hear we go with the first teaching and learning resource I have come up with for this wonderful interactive. You can run through the activities right here below, or you can download a printable step-by-step guide and worksheet 💾. Have fun!

How Climate Change is Impacting Extreme Event Trends – WORKSHEETDownload

How climate change is impacting extreme event trends: Step-by-step guide

Getting the data ready for analysis

You will analyse spreadsheet data collected from scientific studies to discover how climate change is changing extreme weather events. These instructions are for Google Sheets but should work with other apps like Microsoft Excel.
💾 Download the data at bit.ly/CB-exevdata 🖱️ Open the downloaded file “papers-downloaded.csv” into a new Google Sheets spreadsheet.

To make the analysis easier, let’s turn the data into a table with filters:
🖱️ 1. Click on column ‘A’, hold SHIFT and click on column ‘L’ to highlight all columns 2. On the menu click on ‘Format’ and click ‘Convert to table’❓We need to find out whether different types of extreme events have become more or less likely or severe over a period of time. Before you continue. Discuss which three columns of data will be most useful for us to analyse.

We will be analysing data from three columns:

• COLUMN B: Event year/Trend – whether a study focused on a single extreme event in a given year, or changes over a longer period of time (trend)
• COLUMN E: Event type – type of extreme event
• COLUMN F: Classification – what the science said about whether human climate change had an impact on this event or trend

We need to prepare the table to allow us to work with only the data we want – studies that looked into trends only. To do this, we will filter the data. But first, we need to create a ‘helper column’ so we can work with the filtered data only.
🖱️Creating a 'helper column'1. Right click on column 'L' and click '+ Insert 1 column to the right'2. Double click on the new column's header and change the name from 'Column 13' to 'Visible?' 3. In the first row (cell M2), type in the following formula:=SUBTOTAL(103, A2) 4. Right click on cell M2 and click 'Copy'5. Right click on column M at the top and click 'Paste'
The column titled ‘Visible?’ will be filled with the number ‘1’. This shows that the row is visible and not hidden. When we hide cells we don’t want, that number will turn to ‘0’. This will be important later. Now we can filter the data.
🖱️ Filtering the data to show only 'trends'1. Click on the drop arrow (v) next to 'Event year/Trend' (column B)2. Click on 'Filter column' 3. Click 'clear' 4. Scroll down the list to the bottom and click on 'Trend'5. Click 'OK'
There should be 151 of 999 rows filtered (check the bottom right). If so, you are ready to analyse the data to see if any types of extreme event have changed due to climate change.

We will focus on five types of extreme events :

• Heat
• Rain & flooding
• Drought
• Storm
• Wildfire

Task 1: How many extreme events were studied?

🖱️ Create and set up a new sheet for analysis1. Click on the plus (+) at the bottom left of the screen2. Right click on the new tab's name ('Sheet 1') and click 'Rename' 3. Type 'Number of events'4. In the top left cell (A1), type 'Heat'5. Type other event types in the rows below: - 'Rain & flooding' in cell A2 - 'Drought' in cell A3 - 'Storm' in cell A4 - 'Wildlife' in cell A5
Rather than manually counting the different types of extreme events, we can use formulas to count them for us.
🖱️ Use the 'COUNTIFS' formula to count filtered events1. Click on the cell next to 'Heat' (cell B1)2. Type in the following formula:=COUNTIFS('papers-download.csv'!E:E, A1, 'papers-download.csv'!M:M, 1)3. Right click on cell B1 and click 'Copy'4. Click and hold on cell B2 and drag down to cell B55. Right click on the selected area and click 'Paste'
What does the formula do? It asks Google sheets to count the number of times a type of event appears in visible (filtered) cells only.

• COUNTIFS tells the spreadsheet that we want to count more than one piece of data
• ‘papers-download.csv’!E:E means we want to look for data in column ‘E’ of the sheet containing our table
• A1 tells the programme to look for any data with the word in cell A1 (in our case, the word ‘Heat’) in column E of the table sheet
• ‘papers-download.csv’!M:M means we also want to look for data in column ‘M’ of the sheet containing our table
• 1 tells the programme to look for any data with the number ‘1’ in column M of the table sheet (so any row visible)

❓How many scientific studies looking into changing trends focused on each of the types of extreme events?

Take Our Survey

🖱️ Create a chart1. On the 'Number of events' sheet, highlight your data table by clicking and holding on cell A1 ('Heat') and dragging to cell B5 ('8')2. On the menu, click on 'Insert' and click 'Chart' 3. Experiment with different chart types by clicking on the options underneath 'Chart type' on the right hand side. Which chart do you think works best, and why?

Task 2: How have extreme ‘heat’ events changed over time?

We are now going to create a chart to show what has happened to extreme ‘heat’ events according to the finding of their 49 scientific studies. Have most become more severe or likely because of human climate change or not?
🖱️ Create and set up a new sheet for analysis1. Click on the plus (+) at the bottom left of the screen2. Right click on the new tab's name ('Sheet 2') and click 'Rename' 3. Type 'Heat events'4. In the top left cell (A1), type 'More severe or more likely to occur'5. Type other event types in the rows below: - 'No discernible human influence' in cell A2 - 'Decrease, less severe or less likely to occur' in cell A3 - 'Insufficient data/inconclusive' in cell A4 ❓Create a 'COUNTIFS' formula to complete your data analysis table. You can copy the other formula and adjust it rather than typing out one from scratch. HINT: You will need to also 'count' the data in column 'F' of the table sheet, in addition to 'Heat' events (in column 'E') and column 'M' to count visible rows. So your COUNTIFS will be looking up three pieces of data, rather than two before.If you get stuck, you can follow the steps below. 🖱️ Use the 'COUNTIFS' formula to count change in trends for heat events1. Click on the cell next to 'More severe or more likely to occur' (cell B1)2. Type in the following formula:=COUNTIFS('papers-download.csv'!E:E, "Heat", 'papers-download.csv'!F:F, A1, 'papers-download.csv'!M:M, 1)3. Right click on cell B1 and click 'Copy'4. Click and hold on cell B2 and drag down to cell B45. Right click on the selected area and click 'Paste'Once finished, insert a chart of your choice as before.❓Out of the 49 heat events studied:- How many show a heat event that has got more severe or likely?- No change due to humans?- Has got less severe or likely?- The research couldn't be clear?
What should be clear is that in this case, the scientific research is very strong about how the trend of extreme heat events is changing due to human climate change. This is perhaps no surprise as a global warming will mean a warmer atmosphere and so extreme heat events like heatwaves are more likely, no matter where in the world. But does research show as much of a clear signal for other extreme events?

Task 3: How have Other extreme events changed over time?

Now that you have analysed the data for trends of extreme heat events, what about rain & flooding, drought, storms and wildfire?
❓Repeat the steps from Task 2 above, create a new sheet for each of the remaining four extreme events and adjust the COUNTIFS to analyse the results of their scientific studies.HINT: The quickest way to do this is to copy the 'Heat events' sheet, rename it, and change each COUNTIFS formula - replacing the word "Heat" to e.g. "Rain & flooding" etc.Once completed, answer the questions below.

Take Our Survey

Task 4: Being place-specific about the findings

We’ve established that the scientific research is showing that majority of extreme events (heat, rain & flooding, drought, storms and wildfire) around the world are trending towards getting more severe and more likely, but with a small number places around the world showing different trends.

We can add a further fourth instruction to our COUNTIFS formula to analyse what the trends could be for different parts of the world. This is more tricky as it requires making a new table for each event. Here is what the one for ‘Heat events’ looks like when complete:

❓BONUS CHALLENGE!Attempt to create a table to analyse data for 'Drought' and 'Storms' using COUNTIFS formulas to see a count for the results from different studies from different parts of the world. If you find this a bit too challenging or want to skip ahead and save time, you can download a completed spreadsheet here 💾Once completed, answer the questions below.

Take Our Survey

Summary

We’ve completed a set of spreadsheet analysis tasks based on data collected from the results of scientific research looking into how the trends certain extreme events are responding due to human-made climate change.

We have discovered:

• So far, 151 scientific studies have looked into whether human-made climate change has caused the trend of extreme events to change
• Most of the studies have looked into extreme heat events (49)
• All studies looking into extreme heat events and extreme wildfire events show that they have become more severe or likely over time
• Most studies looking into extreme storm events show they have become more severe or likely, but some (2) show they have become less severe or likely
• This tells us for some extreme events, there can be differences in trends in different parts of the world
• The studies that looked into extreme drought events in Australia, New Zealand, Asia and Europe show that drought is getting more severe or likely, but there are some differences in results in North America
• Studies so far into changes in extreme drought events in Sub-Saharan Africa do not show any human climate change impacts
• Studies show that the patterns of extreme storm events in Eastern and south-eastern Asia are changing differently within that region

In summary: For the 151 exteme event attribution studies that have taken place so far, due to human-made climate change, heat and wildfire events appear to be getting worse all over the world. Rain & flooding and storms are getting worse in most parts. Drought is getting worse everywhere but not in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Thank you! All my education work via the Geogramblings’ “Life Geographic” blog is done all in my spare time, at my own cost but is free for you to access and enjoy. If you can spare a few pence, I’d be delighted if you could show your thanks by ‘buying me a coffee‘.

The #climate is changing so fast that we haven’t seen how bad extreme weather could get

Decades-old statistics no longer represent what is possible in the present day.

Simon Lee, Hayley Fowler, and Paul Davies, The Conversation - 7/31/2024

"#ExtremeWeather is, by definition, rare on our planet. Ferocious #storms, searing #heatwaves, and biting #ColdSnaps illustrate what the climate is capable of at its worst. However, since Earth’s climate is rapidly warming, predominantly due to #FossilFuel burning, the range of possible weather conditions, including extremes, is changing.

"Scientists define 'climate' as the distribution of possible weather events observed over a length of time, such as the range of temperatures, rainfall totals, or hours of sunshine. From this, they construct statistical measures, such as the average (or normal) temperature. Weather varies on several timescales—from seconds to decades—so the longer the period over which the climate is analyzed, the more accurately these analyses capture the infinite range of possible configurations of the atmosphere."

Read more:
arstechnica.com/science/2024/0…

#ClimateChangeWeatherWheel #ClimateCrisis #ClimateChange #Polycrisis #HungerGames #Extinction