2024 saw multiple high-impact compound events. Record-breaking global temperatures combined with regional weather variability to create compound floods, spatially compounding droughts and heatwaves, and hazard sequences with often devastating impacts.
Key points
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Spatially compounding marine heatwaves and droughts hit the global ocean and southern Africa, respectively, causing widespread impacts on ecosystems and human societies.
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Wet soils preconditioned landscapes in the USA and Nepal, amplifying impacts caused by extreme rainfall events.
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Sequences of hazards, such as droughts or heatwaves followed by heavy rainfall and the rapid succession of storms, led to large impacts in China, Australia and the UK.
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Acknowledgements
J.Z. acknowledges the Helmholtz Initiative and Networking Fund (Young Investigator Group COMPOUNDX, Grant Agreement VH-NG-1537) and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101003469 (XAIDA). Y.C. acknowledges the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42375041) and China Meteorological Administration (CMA) Youth Innovation Team (CMA2024QN06). C.J.W. was supported by the European Union’s Horizon Europe through the ‘Multi-hazard and risk informed system for enhanced local and regional disaster risk management (MEDiate)’ project under grant agreement No 101074075. C.J.W. wishes to thank E. Wallace and H. Roberts, both from UK Met Office, for their constructive discussions relating to the 2024 UK storm sequences. C.D.W.R. is supported by funding from the Australian Climate Service. C.D.W.R. thanks R. Warren, D. Udy and B. Hague from the Bureau of Meteorology for their feedback. R.L. acknowledges the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (Cnpq - grants 311487/2021-1 and 443285/2023-2) and Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ grant E-26/200.329/2023).
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Authors and Affiliations
Department of Compound Environmental Risks, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig, Germany
Jakob Zscheischler
Department of Hydro Sciences, TUD Dresden University of Technology, Dresden, Germany
Jakob Zscheischler
Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Colin Raymond
Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, China
Yang Chen
Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences Department, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
Natacha Le Grix
Department of Meteorology, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Renata Libonati
Instituto Dom Luiz, University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal
Renata Libonati
Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Cassandra D. W. Rogers
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Christopher J. White
Climate System Analysis Group, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
Piotr Wolski
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Zscheischler, J., Raymond, C., Chen, Y. et al. Compound weather and climate events in 2024. Nat Rev Earth Environ 6, 240–242 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-025-00657-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-025-00657-y
