A major new report is due out on Friday from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that will link an increase in extreme weather events and disasters to global warming. A few days before its release, I had the chance to sit down with Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC -- the man the climate skeptics love to hate.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/18/ipcc-chief-denial-extreme-weather?newsfeed=true
Of course, he said, it's in the nature of extreme weather that no single event, no single incident, can be linked directly to global warming. Recall the controversy over Hurricane Katrina. Pachauri wasn't able to comment on the specifics of the report pre-publication, but his underlying message was clear. "As we said in the 2007 assessment report," he told me, "floods, droughts, and heatwaves will all increase. We abide by that, and we hope the world accepts it. We can never link a specific event, but the aggregate analysis is totally sound."
Stands to reason, of course.
IF the atmosphere is warmer, THEN more energy in the system will cause greater extremes in atmospheric activity.
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