Salt Lake City, like most city and county governments nationwide, has started making plans for managing natural disasters related to climate change.

But Utah's largest city received a shoutout Monday for its leading work in finding ways to adapt as advocacy groups prepared for a report later this week from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the link between climate change and weird weather.

Protecting watersheds, promoting conservation and other practical strategies are already being mapped out to help Salt Lake City residents become more resilient to the impacts of extreme weather, said Vicki Bennett, city director of Sustainability and Environment.

"It's no different from any other risk-management exercise," she said. "People in this state are always planning for the future, and this is no different."

The capital's efforts to prepare for the kinds of natural disasters related to climate change — drought, heat waves, flooding and the like — have been stepped up in what 30-year meteorologist Jeff Masters calls a "remarkable year for weather extremes."

"One event after another," he said in a news conference Monday. "It never seems to stop."

Co-founder of the forecasting organization Weather Underground, Masters noted that there have been a record-breaking 14 extreme weather events so far this year. That's five more than the past record — nine in 2008 — and almost five times the usual number.

He said scientists predict more severe weather events because people have pumped more energy into the climate system. More energy means more fuel for tornadoes, drought, flood and other forms of climate calamity, he said.

Pointing to tornadoes, Masters noted that there were seven times in just two months when a tornado's damage toll topped $1 billion.

One outbreak in April claimed 346 lives and destroyed $9 billion in property, the single largest weather event of the year. Another in late May leveled Joplin, Mo., killing 59 people and caused $3 billion in damage.

"Mother Nature has made it abundantly clear this year the gloves are off," Masters concluded. "And, with climate change likely to boost the destructive power of storms, heat waves and droughts, we can expect an increasing number of these bare-knuckle years in the decades to come."

Brian Holland, of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, said his group's recent poll of local governments found that 59 percent of the 300 communities reported already taking steps to deal with climate change.

He pointed to the Western Adaptation Alliance, a collaborative that includes Salt Lake City and Park City, as well as larger western cities such as Las Vegas, which have zeroed in on water use.

Laura Briefer, of the city's Department of Public Utilities, said local efforts are aimed at preserving high-quality, low-cost and dependable water supplies.

"In a nutshell," she said, "we're trying to plan for the resilience of our communities, and our community relies on water for its sustainability and health."