The investigation of extreme events and their relation to climate change and variability is arguably
one of the most challenging areas in climate research. Extremes are also of continual concern amongst policy and decision makers, and in the media, because of the devastating impacts that can result from their occurrence. As high- lighted in the recent IPCC Special Reporton “Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change and adaptation” (SREX), climate extremes are by definition rare, often difficult to define, not well observed, and posesubstantial challenges in their characterization (IPCC, 2012;Seneviratneetal.,2012). The scientific challenges are multidisciplinary, and point to the need for improved statistical analysis tools, deeper process understanding, and more extensive assessments of the societal and ecosystems impacts of extreme events. Despite,or maybe because of these issues, research on extremes is vibrant and is advancing rapidly (Seneviratne et al.,2012;Zwiersetal.,2013;Herringetal.,2014). Nevertheless, the magnitude and importance of research on extremes is solarge that even greater levels of effort and amounts of expertise are urgently required across a broad range of disciplines.