Climate change: ‘human fingerprint’ found on global extreme weather

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Climate change: ‘human fingerprint’ found on global extreme weather

Villagers use part of a damaged railway track to cross floodwaters in Sultan Kot, Sindh province after torrential monsoon rains triggered Pakistan’s worst natural disaster on record in 2010. Photograph: Damir Sagolj/Reuters

The fingerprint of human-caused climate change has been found on heatwaves, droughts and floods across the world, according to scientists.

The discovery indicates that the impacts of global warming are already being felt by society and adds further urgency to the need to cut carbon emissions. A key factor is the fast-melting Arctic, which is now strongly linked to extreme weather across Europe, Asia and north America.

Rising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have long been expected to lead to increasing extreme weather events, as they trap extra energy in the atmosphere. But linking global warming to particular events is difficult because the climate is naturally variable.

The new work analysed a type of extreme weather event known to be caused by changes in “planetary waves” – such as California’s ongoing record drought, and recent heatwaves in the US and Russia, as well as severe floods in Pakistan in 2010.

Planetary waves are a pattern of winds, of which the jet stream is a part, that encircle the northern hemisphere in lines that undulate from the tropics to the poles. Normally, the whole wave moves eastwards but, under certain temperature conditions, the wave can halt its movement. This leaves whole regions under the same weather for extended periods, which can turn hot spells into heatwaves and wet weather into floods.

This type of extreme weather event is known to have increased in recent decades. But the new research used observations and climate models to show that the chances of the conditions needed to halt the planetary waves occurring are significantly more likely as a result of global warming.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...n-fingerprint-found-on-global-extreme-weather

Such reports make it ' significantly more likely ' that climate-change deniers are self-serving simpletons with a financial interest in perpetuating the lie that human activity is not responsible.
Frankly, they should be investigated - and those proven to be fucking up our world for their own personal profit should be arrested. The discussion should focus on the fitting punishment for their crimes.
Such people- and I use the term reluctantly- are as dangerous as extremist terrorists because they threaten us all. Your kids, your grandkids, could suffer terribly because of their activities. Identify them and criminalize them. Remove them from the equation before they kill our world.