Reports link heat waves, deluges to climate change [scam] - The Washington Post

Scientists are increasingly confident that the uptick in heat waves and heavier rainfall is linked to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, posing a heightened risk to the world’s population, according to two reports issued in the past week.

On Wednesday, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a 594-page study suggesting that when it comes to weather observations since 1950 there has been a “change in some extremes,” which stem in part from global warming.

The report — the product of a collaboration of 220 authors from 62 countries — makes distinctions among different phenomena. It shows there is “limited to medium evidence” that climate change has contributed to changes in flooding, for example, and there is “low confidence” that long-term hurricane trends over the past 40 years have been driven by the world’s growing carbon output.

...For extreme heat waves and unusual downpours, the answer, Coumou and his colleagues found, is yes. “The evidence is solid,” he said: Extra heat in the atmosphere from human-caused greenhouse gases has made these two types of events much [how much, specifically?] more likely. The climate has already changed, and the sheer number of these events over the past decade reflects it, they find....

He pointed to the 2010 heat wave in Moscow and western Russia as an example of an extreme event made much more likely by climate change. The hottest summer in 500 years of temperature records caused 15,000 deaths, shaved billions off of Russia’s economic output, triggered 500 wildfires and destroyed 30 percent of the country’s grain harvest.

“We found very strong warming since 1970s in the Moscow region,” said Coumou, “and this warming has dramatically increased the chances that a record summer would occur.”

...Coumou used a “loaded dice” analogy that’s become popular with climate scientists. Rolling one six is not evidence of a loaded die. Rolling 10 in a row? Now you’re suspicious. Human-induced climate change has loaded the dice toward certain extreme events, Coumou said....

The [policy-neutral?] IPCC report identifies “no regrets” strategies policymakers can pursue that reduce the risk of disasters while promoting sustainable development and climate adaptation, including early-warning systems for hurricanes and better building design and regulation to lower the impact of flash floods .

“There are lots of opportunities which pay off,” said Field, who co-edited the new report.

When the World Tackled an [alleged] Environmental Threat, and [allegedly] Won - NYTimes.com

It took 13 years of bitter debate among governments, business leaders, scientists and concerned citizens before the world accepted his findings and moved to ban these chemicals through an international treaty, the Montreal Protocol, in 1987.

2008 Flashback

the ban failed to change behavior of the ozone layer over the Antarctic.