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cientists have long
baulked at attributing natural disasters directly to climate change.
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| Katherine Bagley - fingerprints of climate change. |
However, as Katherine Bagley writes on InsideClimate News, extreme
heat in India, flooding in Houston, wildfires in Alberta suggest a new normal,
made more chaotic by global warming.
“Communities across the globe got a sobering snapshot this
week of what the future is likely to hold more of: extreme weather getting even
more extreme thanks to climate change,” she writes.
“Historic rainfall and flooding in Texas and Oklahoma left
thousands homeless and dozens of people dead. India is in the midst of a
prolonged heat wave that has already claimed more than 1,800 lives. Wildfires in Alberta consumed hundreds of
square miles of forest while creeping closer to Canada's tar sands, shutting
down production of the carbon-intense fossil fuel.
“More natural disasters may be on the way. Firefighters
across the American West are bracing for a record-breaking wildfire season due
to sustained drought. Federal scientists predicted Wednesday that once the U.S. hurricane season
begins June 1, the East Coast could see as many as 11 named storms out of the
Atlantic Ocean, including two hurricanes rated in the major categories, 3-5.
Sea levels, rising as the globe warms, could increase the amount of damage from
even smaller storms.”
Bagley’s story - “Weather Extremes Wear Climate Change's Fingerprints” – provides a roundup of what the latest science says about climate
change and extreme weather.
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