Not Your Expected Climate Impact: Arizona Flooded by a Tropical Storm

As Tropical Storm Rosa rolls through Arizona, dousing desert towns with heavy rains and filling reservoirs nearly depleted by a lengthy drought, the storm’s arrival is also a message from the sky about the impact of climate change: it can produce weird weather that in ancient times might have been attributed to angry gods.

Satellite images show then-Hurricane Rosa churning toward
 Mexico's Baja California and scientists say climate change
is a big reason storms are taking unusual paths.

Now, however, the unusual sight of flooded streets in Arizona can be explained by science.

“There’s a climate change component to it and we can say that with confidence,” said Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Global warming has raised ocean temperatures and warmed the air above it, supercharging storms with moisture that they unleash in bigger rainfalls. Researchers now have enough data to connect the dots between increasing greenhouse gas emissions, greater moisture in the air and outsized rainstorms, Trenberth said.

Read the Climate Liability News story by Ucilia Wang - “Not Your Expected Climate Impact: Arizona Flooded by a Tropical Storm.”