First International Summit on Tornadoes and Climate Change

Societal interest in tornadoes has increased over the past few years largely due to the loss of life and catastrophic damages of recent events. In the United States the 2011 and 2013 tornado seasons were particularly bad for the large impacts on society.

Using new radar technology and extensive field programs scientists have gained a considerable understanding of how tornadoes in rich moisture and high shear environments form. New insights into how the melting Arctic sea ice can shift these environments provide the background to a better understanding of tornado climate. They propose to bring together for the first time the tornado and climate communities for a 5-day summit with the goal to advance the state of knowledge of how tornado activity across the world might be affected by climate change.

The themes of the summit include: quantification of the risk of tornadoes and other severe local storms, understanding the relationship between severe local storms and climate, tools (statistical models, GCMs, theory, etc) to examine the extent to which the risk is changing over time, and methods to advance the climate prediction of tornadoes and other severe local storms.