New report reveals how the climate crisis is supercharging extreme weather
A home is surrounded by floodwater after torrential rains pounded Southeast Texas following Hurricane and Tropical Storm Harvey on August 31, 2017 near Orange, Texas. Researchers later determined that climate change supercharged the storm, and was was responsible for up to $67 billion of the $90 billion in damage caused by Harvey. | Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
We now have the clearest picture yet of how different the world is today as a result of human-driven climate change. The most comprehensive report to date on the physical science of climate change was published today by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Extreme events — from floods to heatwaves and droughts — have gotten worse, it says in a nutshell. And scientists are even more certain than they were before that humans’ greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide and methane (which makes up a majority of “natural gas”), are to blame.
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