7 Climate Facts You Need to Know #5 Weather is Getting Intense

In the crapshoot that is our weather, climate change loads the dice. It doesn’t cause a particular drought or storm, but it makes such events more or less likely – and in the case of heat waves, a lot more likely. The extraordinary heat wave that killed some 70,000 people in Europe in 2003 should have been a once-in-500-years event; at the current level of global warming, it has become a once-in-40-years event, according to a study published last year. In Paris alone, that analysis found, climate change caused 506 excess death in 2003. If it continues unchecked, another recent study said, by late this century people living along the Persian Gulf may face many days so hot that it will be unsafe to go outside.

It’s not just the heat: Global warming adds moisture to the air, removing it from land and ocean. Where rain is lacking, it makes the drought worse. When rain or snow falls, it’s more likely to be extreme; think of the 2016 floods in Paris or Houston. How climate change effects hurricanes and other tropical cyclones is less certain. But by heating the ocean – the storm’s energy source – it’s likely to make them more intense, if less frequent.

(Summarized from National Geography Magazine, April 2017)

Verdict: Most probably, climate change intense worldwide catastrophic events –
make it worse and frequently

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