Extreme droughts, heat waves, fires, hurricanes, floods, and landslides cause the largest losses in the United States, and globally, from natural hazards linked to weather and climate. There is evidence that the frequency of such extremes is increasing, particularly for heat waves, large fires, and intense precipitation, making better understanding of the probability and consequences of these events imperative. Further, these events are not isolated, but rather interact with each other and with other social and biophysical drivers and conditions, to amplify impacts. Less is known about the nature and strength of these interactions. Natural and social science subfields frame extreme events with different definitions and analytical approaches, often neglecting interactions and the subsequent novel extremes that can arise. Here we propose a framework for social‐environmental extremes, defined as extraordinary events that emerge from interactions among biophysical and social systems. We argue that this definition is critical because it constrains the focus to major events that are capturing societal and scientific attention because of their extreme biophysical drivers and/or the extreme social outcomes. We review how different fields approach extremes as interacting phenomena and propose a synthetic framework that allows analytical separation of the multiple drivers and responses that yield extreme events and extreme effects. We conclude with a future research agenda for understanding the extreme events that matter to society. This agenda will help to identify where, when, and why communities may have high exposure and vulnerability to social‐environmental extremes—informing future mitigation and adaptation strategies.

中文翻译：

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社会环境极端事件：将非凡事件重新思考为相互作用的生物物理和社会系统的结果

极端干旱，热浪，火灾，飓风，洪水和山体滑坡在美国乃至全球范围内，都是与天气和气候有关的自然灾害造成的最大损失。有证据表明，这种极端事件的发生频率正在增加，尤其是对于热浪，大火和强降雨，使人们更加了解这些事件的可能性和后果势在必行。此外，这些事件不是孤立的，而是彼此之间以及与其他社会和生物物理驱动因素和条件的相互作用，以扩大影响。人们对这些相互作用的性质和强度所知甚少。自然科学和社会科学子领域用不同的定义和分析方法来构造极端事件，通常忽略相互作用和随后可能出现的新颖极端。在这里，我们提出了一个针对社会环境极端事件的框架，将其定义为由生物物理和社会系统之间的相互作用而产生的异常事件。我们认为这个定义很关键，因为它将焦点集中在由于其极端生物物理驱动因素和/或极端社会成果而引起社会和科学关注的重大事件上。我们回顾了不同领域如何将极端现象视为相互作用的现象，并提出了一个综合框架，该框架允许对产生极端事件和极端影响的多种驱动因素和响应进行分析性分离。我们以未来的研究议程作为结尾，以了解与社会息息相关的极端事件。该议程将有助于确定何时何地，