“Extreme weather” — the definition of extreme weather is when a weather event is significantly different from the average or usual weather pattern. Drought and wildfires in California, flooding in Louisiana, the heat wave and drought we experienced this summer in Massachusetts are just three examples of extreme weather events that are severely impacting all of us in one way or another.
Extreme weather events are not new, but these are different, and these events are not just significantly different: they are record-setting. And they are record-setting because they are driven by record-setting global temperatures.
Of the 15 warmest years on record, 14 have occurred this century, and 2016 looks like it will be the third straight record-breaking warmest year in a row.
“Every month this year has been record warm globally. Several months early in the year were among the first ever recorded to exceed one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above average,” stated Andrea Thompson on July 19 in Scientific American’s “First Half of 2016 Blows Away Temperature Records.”
The summer of 2016 was the driest ever recorded in Boston, and August was the warmest month in Boston ever recorded.
According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, July 2016 was Earth’s warmest month ever recorded, dating back to 1880.
Scientists know that burning fossil fuels causes an increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases, which causes global warming. This increases evaporation, causing drought and wildfires. Also, evaporation puts more moisture in the atmosphere, causing more heavy precipitation and flooding. These seemingly contrary climate events are not contradictory; they are the direct result of human caused warming.
“Changes in extreme weather and climate events, such as heat waves and droughts, are the primary way that most people experience climate change. Human-induced climate change has already increased the number and strength of some of these extreme events. Over the last 50 years, much of the U.S. has seen increases in prolonged periods of excessively high temperatures, heavy downpours, and in some regions, severe floods and droughts. Prolonged (multi-month) extreme heat has been unprecedented since the start of reliable instrumental records in 1895,” according to the U.S. National Climate Assessment in 2014.
“This rise in extreme weather events fits a pattern you can expect with a warming planet. Scientists project that climate change will make some of these extreme weather events more likely to occur and/or more likely to be severe” (US. Environmental Protection Agency).
A recent report by the National Academies of Science, “Attribution of Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate Change,” concludes “… It is now possible to estimate the influence of climate change on some types of extreme events. The science of extreme event attribution has advanced rapidly in recent years, giving new insight to the ways that human-caused climate change can influence the magnitude or frequency of some extreme weather events.”
The study, released Sept. 7, stated, “Climate change has increased the likelihood of torrential downpours along the Gulf Coast like those that led to deadly floods in southern Louisiana last month.” The researchers, including Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists, found that “global warming increased the chances of such intense rains in the region by at least 40 percent.” Heidi Cullen, Climate Central’s chief scientist and coordinator of the study, stated: “Climate change played a very clear and quantifiable role.”
The 2003 European heat wave killed more than 70,000 people. A study published in July in the journal Environmental Research Letters demonstrated 70 percent of the heat-related deaths in central Paris could be attributed to climate change.
Global warming is not a theory or a hoax, it is a fact. It is our new reality, and extreme weather is the result. This is what climate change looks like, and it is not going away. It is only getting worse. Extreme weather today will be normal weather tomorrow, and extreme weather tomorrow will become normal weather soon after.
Climate change is our legacy for future generations, and they will remember us for what we have done, and for what we failed to do.
Deniers try to fool themselves and us into thinking this is natural. “These are just natural cycles” or “I believe it goes up and it goes down,” says Donald Trump. They say the cause can’t be us. “How could we possible change the atmosphere?”
“It must be the sun.”
But solar energy output has been trending down while earth’s temperature has been trending up. Scientists have not ignored the natural cycles; they have simply found them inadequate to explain what is happening. Only when human actions, primarily fossil fuel emissions and land use changes, are included in the equation can science explain reality. We have changed the atmosphere!
“We are the first generation to feel the sting of climate change,” said Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, “and the last generation that can do something about it.”
William Gran, now retired, was an adjunct instructor at Greenfield Community College on global warming and climate change. He can be reached at whgran@gmail.com