Is Climate Change Causing Extreme Weather – The sun rises over New York’s hazy skyline as seen from Jersey City, N.J., on June 7, 2023. Raging wildfires in Canada blanket the US Northeast in a dystopian haze, turning the air sour, the sky yellowish gray and prompting warnings for vulnerable populations. to stay indoors.
Season after season and year after year, weather conditions that were once rare are now more and more common.
Contents
- 1 Is Climate Change Causing Extreme Weather
- 2 Climate Change And Disasters
Is Climate Change Causing Extreme Weather
When fossil fuels are burned for electricity, heat and transportation, carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps solar radiation, is released into our atmosphere.
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Over the last century, the enormous increase in the emission of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases has caused the temperature of our planet to rise. This rise in global temperatures is fueling climate disasters, and they will only get worse if we don’t act. Experts warn that we are running out of time to significantly reduce pollution to avoid climate catastrophe.
Read on to learn more about what is being done to help the planet change course and how you can help.
A man brushes his eyebrows as he walks under the gents on July 13, 2023, in downtown Phoenix. Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and southern California had temperatures in excess of 100 degrees and heat advisories. (Matt York/AP)
As global temperatures rise, the hottest temperatures—and the number of areas affected by extreme heat—are also increasing. That means more hot days in more places.
Tornadoes And Climate Change
This July in California’s Death Valley, thermometers approached the highest temperature ever recorded, hovering around 130 degrees. In the same month, the global average temperature reached an all-time high.
It’s not individual record-breaking warm days, there’s a general warming trend. Take the Texas cities of Austin and Houston for example. In the past 50 years, Austin has had one more month with temperatures above 100°F, while Houston has recorded one more month with temperatures above 95°F. In California, temperatures are estimated to have risen by 3°F in the last century.
By 2100, scientists predict higher temperatures and more frequent and intense heat waves in every region of the US, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. And trends cross borders.
Extreme heat increases demand for air conditioning, fueling carbon pollution and straining our energy system, which can lead to blackouts. It also poses a serious threat to health, especially for the most vulnerable.
Extreme Weather Events Could Worsen Climate Change
Burning hillsides as firefighters battle the Maria fire in Santa Paula, California, on November 1, 2019. (Noah Berger/AP Photo)
Wildfires have always been a natural part of life in the western United States and Canada. However, as this region becomes hotter and drier, fires are increasing in size, intensity and speed.
Hazardous air pollution from wildfire smoke can spread far beyond the burned area. In the summer of 2023, smoke from nearly 900 fires that spread across Canada prompted air quality warnings, affecting 70 million people in the eastern United States.
California has been particularly prone to devastating wildfires in recent years. Along with dry and hot conditions across the state, strong seasonal winds (Diablo in northern California and Santa Ana in southern California) have caused wildfires to grow and spread at an unprecedented rate.
Heat Waves And Climate Change
California wildfires have burned more than 4 million acres in 2020—an area larger than Connecticut—making 2020 the largest wildfire season in the state’s history. The 2018 Camp Fire — California’s most destructive and deadly wildfire — destroyed an average of a football field’s worth of fire every three seconds and killed 68 people, according to CAL FIRE.
And it’s not just California. Oregon, Washington and Colorado also saw explosive fires that forced thousands to evacuate, claimed lives and destroyed homes and businesses.
A mother and her three-week-old baby are transported from their home amid flooding from Hurricane Harvey in 2017. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Hurricanes are becoming stronger as global temperatures rise because these storm systems draw energy from warm ocean water.
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Hurricane Fiona dumped unprecedented amounts of rain and caused massive damage, leaving residents of Puerto Rico without electricity and drinking water.
A few days later, Hurricane Ian quickly strengthened as it headed toward the Florida coast, giving residents little time to prepare. Scientists warn that this will become more common as our climate warms: storms will not only become stronger, but also intensify faster.
A dried up lake sits near the Navajo Nation village of Thoreau on June 6, 2019 in Thoreau, N.M. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Droughts in the US and other parts of the world have become more severe and persistent thanks to climate change.
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In fact, the American West is currently in the midst of a mega-drought that ranks among the worst in 1,200 years, even after abundant precipitation in 2023. Much of the region is experiencing “extreme” or “exceptional” drought conditions.
Montpelier resident Ben Cheney and rising floodwaters at the intersection of State and Main Streets in downtown Montpelier, Vermont, on July 10, 2023. (Jeb Wallace-Brodeur / The Times Argus via AP)
Warmer air increases evaporation, meaning our atmosphere holds more and more water vapor for storms to spread and turn into rain or snow.
Just as drier areas are likely with rising global temperatures, areas of the world historically prone to high precipitation will become wetter.
Climate Change And Disasters
Torrential rains and flooding in the Northeast in July 2023 caused tens of millions of dollars in damage, inundated Vermont’s capital city with knee-deep water, and killed at least one person. New precipitation estimates released in 2023 show that 12.6 million properties in the U.S. that were not previously considered at risk of flooding will experience an increased likelihood of experiencing extreme rainfall.
Houston residents flee flooded homes and businesses after Hurricane Harvey in 2017 (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
As the planet warms, the waters of the oceans are also warming – and expanding. At the same time, warmer temperatures cause land ice—say, glaciers and ice caps—to melt, which adds water to the world’s oceans.
The Atlantic coast of the United States and the Gulf of Mexico are experiencing some of the highest sea levels in the world, which, along with record rainfall, has caused catastrophic flooding.
Causes And Impacts Of Climate Change
A woman shields her face while walking in the open spaces in Jersey City, NJ, on February 1, 2021. A winter storm dumped more than two feet of snow on the area and may have broken the state’s 122-year snowfall record. . (Seth Wenig/AP)
Even though climate change is increasing the global average temperature, this does not mean that winter is over. In general, the winters are getting milder and shorter; but the last winter brought intense snow storms and record freezing temperatures.
Although it may seem counterintuitive, climate change may make winter weather more extreme. As the warming atmosphere holds water vapor later in the year, this precipitation leads to more snowfall when temperatures drop.
Another factor is the rapidly warming Arctic, which some scientists believe is weakening the jet stream and causing disturbances in the polar vortex. A polar vortex refers to bands of wind and low air pressure near the North Pole that usually trap cold air over the Arctic. When these bands break, frozen air can escape to the south in the form of winter frosts.
Climate Change Impacts
In 2021, record snowstorms knocked out power to nearly 4.5 million homes in Texas as icy conditions and heating demands overwhelmed most of the region’s power supplies. More than a hundred people died, and the storm caused 295 billion dollars in damage.
Peter Koleckar reacts after seeing several homes burned in his neighborhood during the CZU Lightning Complex fire on August 20, 2020 in Bonny Doon, California (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo)
Americans across the political spectrum feel the urgency of our climate crisis and are calling for action to match the threat. We need bold and just climate solutions to move towards a pollution-free clean energy future.
Our lawyers use the law and work with communities on the front lines of the climate crisis. Here are some examples of the goals we are working on and the progress we have made:
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This fight to preserve a habitable planet affects us all. Together we can initiate transformative change in the service of justice for the country and the people.
The Power Clean Program uses the power of law and the power of partnership to accelerate the transition to 100% clean energy. Hurricanes, devastating droughts, devastating ice storms, and violent heat waves are all extreme weather events that can take lives and cause little to no damage. Climate change is affecting bad weather, causing longer droughts and higher temperatures in some regions and more intense floods in others, climate experts say. Among the most vulnerable are communities in vulnerable mountain and coastal areas. In these environments around the world, citizens are adapting to new climate conditions by strengthening warning, shelter and protection systems.
Meteorological data show an increase in severe weather since then
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