Applied Sciences
| Open Access |
DOI: Correlating Carbon Emissions with Extreme Weather Events: A Global Data Analysis
Advait Shankar Kambam , Heritage Xperiential Learning School, Haryana, India. Mohit Singh Rana , Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA.Abstract
Rapid developments in industrialization have significantly induced carbon emissions and consequently aggravated climate change. Distinct correlations between increasing levels of carbon emissions and extreme weather events through anthropogenic activities can provide clear evidence of vulnerabilities. The present study provides a detailed global data analysis that quantitatively links historical human-induced carbon emissions to observed trends in extreme weather phenomena. By synthesizing datasets, a solid statistical and physical connection between emissions and their climatic consequences is established. The analysis reveals that since 1960, fossil fuel emissions have quadrupled, peaking at 10.1 ± 0.5 GtC yr⁻¹ in 2023. This surge has pushed atmospheric CO₂ concentrations beyond 429 ppm, 50% more than the pre-industrial era and a peak not seen in at least 800,000 years. This atmospheric forcing has led to unprecedented global temperatures, with 2024 recorded as 1.55 ± 0.13 °C above the 1850–1900 baseline. While planetary sinks absorb about half of all human-caused emissions, with the ocean sink taking in 2.9 ± 0.4 GtC yr⁻¹ at the expense of ocean acidification, the atmospheric growth rate of CO₂ remains alarmingly high. The definitive link to extreme weather is confirmed through attribution science, which shows that human-caused climate change made 74% of over 600 analyzed extreme events more probable or severe, with some events being "virtually impossible" otherwise. These results offer unequivocal, data-supported evidence that rising carbon emissions are a direct driver of the increased frequency and intensity of devastating heatwaves, floods, and droughts, highlighting the urgent need to accelerate the global shift to a net-zero economy.
Keywords
Climate change, CO2 emissions, weather changes, data analysis, fossil fuel emissions
References
Andrew, R. M., & Peters, G. P. (2024). The Global Carbon Project's fossil CO2 emissions dataset (Version 2024v1.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10097361
Bastos, A., Ciais, P., Chevallier, F., Rödenbeck, C., Ballantyne, A. P., Maignan, F., Yin, Y., Fernández-Martínez, M., Friedlingstein, P., Peñuelas, J., Piao, S. L., Sitch, S., Smith, W. K., Wang, X., Zhu, Z., Haverd, V., Kato, E., Jain, A. K., Lienert, S., & Zhu, D. (2019). Contrasting effects of CO₂ fertilization, land-use change and warming on seasonal amplitude of Northern Hemisphere CO₂ exchange. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 19(19), 12361–12375. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-12361-2019
British Geological Survey. (n.d.). How does the greenhouse effect work? Retrieved June 20, 2025, from https://www.bgs.ac.uk/discovering-geology/climate-change/how-does-the-greenhouse-effect-work/
Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED). (2025). The Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT). UCLouvain. https://www.emdat.be
Friedlingstein, P., O'Sullivan, M., Jones, M. W., Andrew, R. M., Bakker, D. C. E., Becker, M., Canadell, J. G., Ciais, P., Davis, S. J., Fey, M., Gasser, T., Harris, I., Hauck, J., Haverd, V., Hoffman, F. M., Hoppema, M., Houghton, R. A., Ilyina, T., Jackson, R. B., ... Zaehle, S. (2024). Global Carbon Budget 2024. Earth System Science Data, 16(12), 5309–5409. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-5309-2024
Global Carbon Project. (2024). Supplemental data of Global Carbon Budget 2024 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. https://doi.org/10.18160/GCP-2024
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2023). Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/
Kim, J. S., Kug, J. S., & Jeong, S. J. (2017). Intensification of the terrestrial carbon cycle related to El Niño–Southern Oscillation under greenhouse warming. Nature Communications, 8(1), 1674.
Lan, X., Tans, P., & Thoning, K. W. (2024). Trends in globally-averaged CO₂ determined from NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory measurements (Version 2024-06) [Data set]. NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory. https://doi.org/10.15138/9N0H-ZH07
Lindsey, R. (2024, April 24). Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. NOAA Climate.gov. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide
Liu, J., Tong, D., Zheng, Y., Cheng, J., Qin, X., Shi, Q., Yan, L., Lei, Y., & Zhang, Q. (2021). Carbon and air pollutant emissions from China’s cement industry 1990–2015: trends, evolution of technologies, and drivers. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 21(3), 1627–1647. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1627-2021
McSweeney, R., & Tandon, A. (2024, November 18). Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world. Carbon Brief. https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-how-climate-change-affects-extreme-weather-around-the-world/
National Centers for Environmental Information. (n.d.). Severe Weather Data Inventory. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved June 20, 2025, from https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/severe-weather-data-inventory
National Centers for Environmental Information. (n.d.). U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved June 20, 2025, from https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/
Sun, Y., Zhang, X., Zwiers, F. W., Song, L., Wan, H., Hu, T., Yin, H., & Ren, G. (2018). A review of climate change attribution studies. Journal of Meteorological Research, 32(5), 671–692. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13351-018-8071-7
Tans, P. (NOAA/GML), & Keeling, R. (Scripps Institution of Oceanography). (2025). Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Global Monitoring Laboratory. Retrieved June 20, 2025, from https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
Taylor, C. A., & Schlenker, W. (2021). Environmental drivers of agricultural productivity growth: CO₂ fertilization of US field crops (NBER Working Paper No. 29320). National Bureau of Economic Research.
World Meteorological Organization. (n.d.). Extreme weather. Retrieved June 20, 2025, from https://wmo.int/topics/extreme-weather
World Meteorological Organization. (2025). State of the Global Climate 2024 (WMO-No. 1368). https://library.wmo.int/records/item/69796-state-of-the-global-climate-2024
World Weather Attribution. (n.d.). About WWA. Retrieved June 20, 2025, from https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/
Zhu, Z., Sulla-Menashe, L., Friedl, M. A., Penuelas, J., Zeng, Z., & Myneni, R. B. (2016). Greening of the Earth and its drivers. Nature Climate Change, 6(8), 791–795.
Andrew, R. M., & Peters, G. P. (2024). The Global Carbon Project's fossil CO2 emissions dataset (Version 2024v1.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10097361
Bastos, A., Ciais, P., Chevallier, F., Rödenbeck, C., Ballantyne, A. P., Maignan, F., Yin, Y., Fernández-Martínez, M., Friedlingstein, P., Peñuelas, J., Piao, S. L., Sitch, S., Smith, W. K., Wang, X., Zhu, Z., Haverd, V., Kato, E., Jain, A. K., Lienert, S., & Zhu, D. (2019). Contrasting effects of CO₂ fertilization, land-use change and warming on seasonal amplitude of Northern Hemisphere CO₂ exchange. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 19(19), 12361–12375. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-12361-2019
British Geological Survey. (n.d.). How does the greenhouse effect work? Retrieved June 20, 2025, from https://www.bgs.ac.uk/discovering-geology/climate-change/how-does-the-greenhouse-effect-work/
Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED). (2025). The Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT). UCLouvain. https://www.emdat.be
Friedlingstein, P., O'Sullivan, M., Jones, M. W., Andrew, R. M., Bakker, D. C. E., Becker, M., Canadell, J. G., Ciais, P., Davis, S. J., Fey, M., Gasser, T., Harris, I., Hauck, J., Haverd, V., Hoffman, F. M., Hoppema, M., Houghton, R. A., Ilyina, T., Jackson, R. B., ... Zaehle, S. (2024). Global Carbon Budget 2024. Earth System Science Data, 16(12), 5309–5409. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-5309-2024
Global Carbon Project. (2024). Supplemental data of Global Carbon Budget 2024 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. https://doi.org/10.18160/GCP-2024
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2023). Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/
Kim, J. S., Kug, J. S., & Jeong, S. J. (2017). Intensification of the terrestrial carbon cycle related to El Niño–Southern Oscillation under greenhouse warming. Nature Communications, 8(1), 1674. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-01824-7
Lan, X., Tans, P., & Thoning, K. W. (2024). Trends in globally-averaged CO₂ determined from NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory measurements (Version 2024-06) [Data set]. NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory. https://doi.org/10.15138/9N0H-ZH07
Lindsey, R. (2024, April 24). Climate change: Atmospheric carbon dioxide. NOAA Climate.gov. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide 10
Liu, J., Tong, D., Zheng, Y., Cheng, J., Qin, X., Shi, Q., Yan, L., Lei, Y., & Zhang, Q. (2021). Carbon and air pollutant emissions from China’s cement industry 1990–2015: trends, evolution of technologies, and drivers. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 21(3), 1627–1647. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1627-2021
Download and View Statistics
Copyright License
Copyright (c) 2026 Advait Shankar Kambam, Mohit Singh Rana
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors retain the copyright of their manuscripts, and all Open Access articles are disseminated under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC-BY), which licenses unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is appropriately cited. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, and so forth in this publication, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that these names are not protected by the relevant laws and regulations.