In the Northern Hemisphere in 2017 and 2018 brought several destructive hurricanes to the shores of North America, the Caribbean, and throughout the Pacific rim. Such extreme weather events are predicted to get more common and more severe with increasing climate change.
Several participating classes in the ISCFC were or are in the path of these storms and we hope for the best for them, their families and communities.
We would love to hear from students affected directly and indirectly by extreme weather events, and also any students who have been following the news this summer.
What are your thoughts about the connection between climate change and extreme weather events? Has this hurricane season increased your concern about climate change or not? Do you think that US citizens and residents (and others in the region) will take climate change more seriously now?
Extreme Weather >
Crazy Weather and How it is Affecting People
Our atmosphere has always had a natural climate cycle like El Niño and La Niña. Recent events do connect with our natural climate cycle, but they also are caused by climate change. The atmosphere is slowly getting warmer, creating more moisture. This creates water vapor, which creates heavier rainfall. Climate change is created mostly by global warming which is the heating of our atmosphere. The heating is caused by greenhouse gases in our atmosphere that traps IR radiation. Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, are constantly being emitted into the atmosphere through our daily lives, slowly attributing to global warming. This affects our weather because the atmosphere has more moisture which causes heavier rainfall and the atmosphere is hotter which leads to larger and worse heat waves. Recent events like hurricane Harvey, the heavy rainfall in Rio de Janeiro, and the extreme heat are all examples of the extreme weather that has been occurring. “'By adding just a little bit more carbon dioxide to the climate, it makes things a little bit warmer and shifts the odds t oward these more extreme events,' he says. 'What was once a rare event will become less rare.'”(1) Weather events that seemed unlikely to happen are slowly becoming more occurrent and people blame it on climate change. "When it comes to individual storms, scientists are even less certain what effect global warming might have."(1) We don't know for certain what is to come next in our extreme weather and how it will affect us, but we know that there is a lot more storms, heat waves, and hurricanes ahead of us because of global warming.
(1) Miller, Peter. “Weather Gone Wild.” National Geographic, www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2012/09/extreme-weather-global-cli mate-change-effects/.