Man-made climate change is connected to the worsening extent of extreme weather events, reports a top science research group in Washington, Friday.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NAS) writes that a multitude of factors could be the reason behind weather events, including normal deviations and circulation in the atmosphere.
Contributor and meteorologist Marshall Shepherd from the University of Georgia says their work is the first to provide a precise ranking of events that can be accounted for climate change. He also says that NAS provides a gold standard in studying the sciences.
Ranking Climate Change Links
Scientists wrote that they found the most clear-cut links between climate change and droughts, heat waves and snowstorms and heavy rains. They are most confident about pronouncing these connections because of the sufficient historical evidence available. Aside from that, creating simulations of these events is more or less easy.
Events such as droughts and heavy rains are brought about by the rise in atmospheric moisture due to climate change.
The authors found fewer proof about the effects of climate change on other weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires. This is because of the rarity of these events and limited data to ascertain a link.
Wildfires are said to occur from factors such as climate variables and forest supervision.
Heavy thunderstorms, hurricanes and tornadoes carry the most uncertain relationship to global warming. This is particularly true for events that happen outside tropical waters. Aside from lack of sufficient and reliable evidence, it is very hard to create simulation models of these events.
Answering The Golden Question
Since major weather events such as 2012's hurricane Sandy occurred, the world has never stopped asking what seems to be a golden question: are extreme weather events rooted from man-made climate change?
Team leader David Titley from the Pennsylvania State University says that while it remains to be a difficult question mainly due to a variety of factors than can contribute to individual weather events, he says much more can be said about the association now.
"We can now say more about how climate change has affected the intensity or likelihood of some events," he says.
The full report can be downloaded in this website for free.
