Citation

Tippett MK, Lepore C, Cohen JE. Science 2016; 354(6318): 1419-1423.

Affiliation

Department of Statistics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, American Association for the Advancement of Science)

DOI

10.1126/science.aah7393

PMID

27934705

Abstract

Tornadoes and severe thunderstorms kill people and damage property every year. Estimated U.S. insured losses due to severe thunderstorms in the first half of 2016 were 8.5 billion USD. The largest U.S. impacts of tornadoes result from tornado outbreaks, which are sequences of tornadoes that occur in close succession. Here, using extreme value analysis, we find that the frequency of U.S. outbreaks with many tornadoes is increasing and is increasing faster for more extreme outbreaks. We model this behavior by extreme value distributions with parameters that are linear functions of time or of some indicators of multidecadal climatic variability. Extreme meteorological environments associated with severe thunderstorms show consistent upward trends, but the trends do not resemble those currently expected to result from global warming.

Copyright © 2016, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Language: en