A global perspective is developed on a number of high impact climate extremes in 2010 through diagnostic studies of the anomalies, diabatic heating, and global energy and water cycles that demonstrate relationships among variables and across events. Natural variability, especially ENSO, and global warming from human influences together resulted in very high sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in several places that played a vital role in subsequent developments.

Eastern Indonesia and the southern Philippines comprise a huge and seismically highly active region that has received less than the deserved attention in tsunami research compared with the surrounding areas exposed to the major subduction zones. In an effort to redress the balance the tsunami hazard in this region is studied by establishing a tsunami event database which, in combination with seismological and tectonic information from the region, has allowed us to define and justify a number of ‘credible worst-case’ tsunami scenarios.

Understanding the underlying dynamics of the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) extremes such as severe droughts is key to improving seasonal prediction of the ISM rainfall. A large number of ISM droughts over the past century occurred unrelated to
external forcing like the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In this study, we challenge the perception that the 2009 ISM drought was driven by ENSO and show that it was caused by internally driven processes.

Measurement of surface ozone over the Arabian Sea during the southwest monsoon season (June

There is increasing evidence that the amount of solar radiation incident at the Earth's surface is not stable over the years but undergoes significant decadal variations. Here I review the evidence for these changes, their magnitude, their possible causes, their representation in climate models, and their potential implications for climate change.

Tropospheric NO2 concentrations derived from spaceborne measurements of Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) on board ERS 2 and Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Cartography (SCIAMACHY) on board Envisat, respectively, for the time period of 1996

Brief studies of microearthquakes in four separate parts of eastern Afghanistan reveal a high level of seismicity over a broad area. In general, the activity is not concentrated on well-defined faults, nor does it define new faults, but seismicity on or close to the Chainart and Sarubi faults attests to their activity. First motions of P waves are consistent with left- and right-lateral strike-slip motion, respectively, on these two faults.