Global Warming being blamed for increase in extreme weather

In contrast to my last post, I do think that human influence is playing a big part in increasing the magnitude and frequency as to which environmental hazards occur. This can be seen more in some places than in others. There have been many studies done to collect data on this exact topic. Peter Stott is a leading researcher in this field and was one of the leaders that conducted a study on the 2003 European heat wave that killed 40,000 people. They concluded that human emissions actually made that event twice as likely. A study was also done on the Russian heat wave that happened just last year. The results were published last week and they stated that without the influence of global warming there is an 80% chance that would have never occurred.

Along with these studies that are providing ground breaking data, comes the need and knowledge for evolving technology in this field. Stott and other reaserchers are combining weather forecasting skills with new, unique computer models to ultimately link certain weather events to climate change.

These findings are important, not only to inform people that excessive emissions is a life altering issue, but also that they are advancing  our understanding of environmental hazards. There is a strong and growing belief that increasing our knowledge of climate change's influence on weather is the key to predicting natural disasters. 

Stott and a select few others are working on projects that will eventually lead to the development of models that will be able to forecast natural disasters, much like meterologists forecast the weather on the morning news. With this comes many uncertainties and complexities in creating and translating these future predictions to the public. Although there has been giant steps made in this field, they are far from the ending stage of these models and fully understanding the connection between climate change and extreme weather events. It will be interesting to see the developments to come.


Below: This is an image from of Russia during its 2010 heat wave. The above average temperatures are shown in red and orange. 

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/extreme-measures-the-push-to-make-climate-research-relevant/