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 >
What are the effects of climate change?
Climate change has recently caused serious problems in North America. With climate change comes extreme weather. In the past month, the East Coast has been hit with two devastating hurricanes - Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria and last month Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, Texas.
Climate change is also causing other extreme weather. For example, now wildfires are burning hotter and for longer periods of time. This creates poor air quality, which makes it harder to breathe for like myself who have asthma. People need to start believing climate change is real because these extreme weather problems have caused the amount of carbon dioxide released into the environment to become much greater.
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/re … html#.WcsD rxNS-a
Extreme weather is motivating scientists to perform more research because not all of the effects are known. Extreme weather conditions are causing droughts in areas like California to become more severe. For example, California was in a drought for a long time and this caused us to be c areful with the amount of water we use. The drought created extreme weather conditions because vegetation died and became fuel for wildfires.
San Francisco, California is a cooler area because it is surrounded by a bay. A record high temperature of 106 degrees Fahrenheit on Labor Day weekend made people think about how climate change is affecting us more than we realize. Climate change is a real threat to our lives because we don’t know what else might happen as carbon dioxide levels increase in the atmosphere, but being prepared and taking care of our environment will make a difference.
http://www.wri.org/blog/2017/09/extreme … -got-do-it