It's not just the frequency of extreme events that is going up, but the intensity of the most extreme events. That is a function of the shape of the tail of the distribution. A very small change in the mean or median, or even just the standard deviation, can result in a huge increase in the expected value of the extremes.
Combine this with human psychology and you have a recipe for catastrophe -- literally. You get an extreme event, and then everything reverts to the mean and things seem normal for a while, and people assume that the extreme event was a fluke. It wasn't. It's the new normal, and the next extreme event will be even worse.
You see this playing out in California right now. Everyone thinks the drought is over because it rained last month. It's not over. It's just getting started.
Combine this with human psychology and you have a recipe for catastrophe -- literally. You get an extreme event, and then everything reverts to the mean and things seem normal for a while, and people assume that the extreme event was a fluke. It wasn't. It's the new normal, and the next extreme event will be even worse.
You see this playing out in California right now. Everyone thinks the drought is over because it rained last month. It's not over. It's just getting started.