Table 1 An overview of the four lines of evidence to identify unprecedented weather hazards discussed here, and their key benefits and limitations
Lines of evidence | Benefit | Limitation |
|---|---|---|
Conventional statistical methods using observations | Represent events that actually occurred | Are inherently limited in identifying unseen events |
Past events from historical observations, documentary evidence, oral history and proxy data | Help understand events that may have happened before the modern observational records | Are rare, may be challenging to compare to present conditions, and (for the proxy data) have limited resolution |
Event-based storylines | Provide a physically plausible unfolding of a single event | Only applies to the single event |
Weather and climate-model data exploration | Produce information outside what is possible from observations | Rely on the realism of these models |
