SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
New Research Helps Attribute Specific Extreme Weather to Climate Change
'Climate change can no longer be viewed as a distant threat that may disrupt the lives of our grandchildren, but one that may be singled out as a factor in the storm that flooded your house last week'
Mar 11, 2016
Climate scientists have long been pressed to answer the question "did climate change cause this?" in the days following the most recent devastating weather event. A watershed report (pdf) released Thursday helps those scientists to more conclusively answer: "yes."
The report, authored by the Washington, D.C.-based National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), outlines a system to determine which extreme weather events are caused by climate change and to what extent.
This new area of scientific research, called "extreme weather attribution," is more definitively affirming a connection that many have long asserted and perhaps also helping to silence those deniers who claim that catastrophes such as Cyclone Winston are not caused by global warming.
"Like the surgeon general's 1964 report connecting smoking to lung cancer," Heidi Cullen, chief scientist at Climate Central, wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times on Thursday, "the report from the National Academies connects global warming to the increased risk and severity of certain classes of extreme weather, including some heat waves, floods and drought."
The question about how much climate change has caused specific weather events has been a hard one to answer, Cullen noted, partly because so many other factors--natural and human--influence the weather. It's also proved difficult to pin down to what extent climate change is a factor in a single event, when the effects of global warming are so pervasive. The new report, however, offers scientists a definitive method with which to parse out the connections.
"The report finds that results are most reliable when multiple, different methods are used that incorporate both a long-term historical record of observations and models to estimate human influences on a given event," NASEM reports in a statement.
The rigorous methodology outlined in the NASEM report will allow scientists not only to link past events to climate change, but also to discern the future risks for climate-caused catastrophe, ideally helping countries and cities at risk to better prepare for those disasters.
The report is timely, as environmentalists have recently raised the alarm about the shockingly quick rise in global temperatures this winter and scientists have discovered that in 2015 carbon dioxide levels "exploded," according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).
"Climate change can no longer be viewed as a distant threat that may disrupt the lives of our grandchildren, but one that may be singled out as a factor, possibly a critical factor, in the storm that flooded your house last week," Cullen wrote. "The science of extreme weather attribution brings climate change to our doorsteps."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Climate scientists have long been pressed to answer the question "did climate change cause this?" in the days following the most recent devastating weather event. A watershed report (pdf) released Thursday helps those scientists to more conclusively answer: "yes."
The report, authored by the Washington, D.C.-based National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), outlines a system to determine which extreme weather events are caused by climate change and to what extent.
This new area of scientific research, called "extreme weather attribution," is more definitively affirming a connection that many have long asserted and perhaps also helping to silence those deniers who claim that catastrophes such as Cyclone Winston are not caused by global warming.
"Like the surgeon general's 1964 report connecting smoking to lung cancer," Heidi Cullen, chief scientist at Climate Central, wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times on Thursday, "the report from the National Academies connects global warming to the increased risk and severity of certain classes of extreme weather, including some heat waves, floods and drought."
The question about how much climate change has caused specific weather events has been a hard one to answer, Cullen noted, partly because so many other factors--natural and human--influence the weather. It's also proved difficult to pin down to what extent climate change is a factor in a single event, when the effects of global warming are so pervasive. The new report, however, offers scientists a definitive method with which to parse out the connections.
"The report finds that results are most reliable when multiple, different methods are used that incorporate both a long-term historical record of observations and models to estimate human influences on a given event," NASEM reports in a statement.
The rigorous methodology outlined in the NASEM report will allow scientists not only to link past events to climate change, but also to discern the future risks for climate-caused catastrophe, ideally helping countries and cities at risk to better prepare for those disasters.
The report is timely, as environmentalists have recently raised the alarm about the shockingly quick rise in global temperatures this winter and scientists have discovered that in 2015 carbon dioxide levels "exploded," according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).
"Climate change can no longer be viewed as a distant threat that may disrupt the lives of our grandchildren, but one that may be singled out as a factor, possibly a critical factor, in the storm that flooded your house last week," Cullen wrote. "The science of extreme weather attribution brings climate change to our doorsteps."
Climate scientists have long been pressed to answer the question "did climate change cause this?" in the days following the most recent devastating weather event. A watershed report (pdf) released Thursday helps those scientists to more conclusively answer: "yes."
The report, authored by the Washington, D.C.-based National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), outlines a system to determine which extreme weather events are caused by climate change and to what extent.
This new area of scientific research, called "extreme weather attribution," is more definitively affirming a connection that many have long asserted and perhaps also helping to silence those deniers who claim that catastrophes such as Cyclone Winston are not caused by global warming.
"Like the surgeon general's 1964 report connecting smoking to lung cancer," Heidi Cullen, chief scientist at Climate Central, wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times on Thursday, "the report from the National Academies connects global warming to the increased risk and severity of certain classes of extreme weather, including some heat waves, floods and drought."
The question about how much climate change has caused specific weather events has been a hard one to answer, Cullen noted, partly because so many other factors--natural and human--influence the weather. It's also proved difficult to pin down to what extent climate change is a factor in a single event, when the effects of global warming are so pervasive. The new report, however, offers scientists a definitive method with which to parse out the connections.
"The report finds that results are most reliable when multiple, different methods are used that incorporate both a long-term historical record of observations and models to estimate human influences on a given event," NASEM reports in a statement.
The rigorous methodology outlined in the NASEM report will allow scientists not only to link past events to climate change, but also to discern the future risks for climate-caused catastrophe, ideally helping countries and cities at risk to better prepare for those disasters.
The report is timely, as environmentalists have recently raised the alarm about the shockingly quick rise in global temperatures this winter and scientists have discovered that in 2015 carbon dioxide levels "exploded," according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).
"Climate change can no longer be viewed as a distant threat that may disrupt the lives of our grandchildren, but one that may be singled out as a factor, possibly a critical factor, in the storm that flooded your house last week," Cullen wrote. "The science of extreme weather attribution brings climate change to our doorsteps."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.