High-impact climate extremes in India

Abstract

India's large population, high socio-economic vulnerability, intensive agriculture, and rapidly growing infrastructure make it particularly susceptible to extreme climate and weather events. Despite their significant economic implications and the costs of adaptation, high-impact climate extremes over the last 45 years (1980-2024) have not been comprehensively documented. In this study, we identify high-impact heatwaves, extreme precipitation events, floods, droughts, and combined hot and dry extremes that occurred during this period, using observations and model simulations. We also utilize climate model projections from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) and the CESM2 Large Ensemble Community Project (LENS2) to explore the analogues of these observed high-impact climate extremes. Furthermore, we investigate the occurrence and driving factors of these extremes in India under various levels of global warming. Our findings indicate that there will be a substantial increase in high-impact climate extremes in India if global mean temperatures exceed 2°C.