Hurricane Harvey And The New Normal

This segment is part of our special coverage of Hurricane Harvey. Learn how Harvey could be a disaster for public health, and how developers are building with climate change in mind.

Professor Michael Mann.

“There’s never an ideal time to talk about how climate change is magnifying some of these natural disasters,” says Michael Mann, distinguished professor in the department of meteorology and geosciences at Pennsylvania State University. “But it is important to talk about it.”

As Harvey battered Houston last weekend and floods inundated Southeast Asia in the days following, many did indeed begin to talk about climate change. Mann and other climate scientists say that climate change has intensified these storms so much that we need a new set of guideposts. Predictions we could’ve made in the past are no longer accurate, and the rules that used to help us plan for events like Harvey no longer apply. We’re left with overwhelmed infrastructure and building codes that don’t take into account new conditions.

Listen to the interview on Science Friday - “Hurricane Harvey And The New Normal.”