Chances are, if you live on Earth, you’ve experienced some strange, or downright dangerous, weather in the last few years. Maybe it was a heat wave that was hotter and longer than you’d ever experienced. Or a thunderstorm that dropped a scary amount of rain. Or a powerful hurricane that seemed to materialize overnight.
Climate change is part of that story. Extreme weather is more likely as the Earth gets hotter. But such sweeping statements can feel impersonal, when really what you want to know is: has climate change affected me?
“You have some extreme weather disaster, and people want to know: Did climate change flood my house? Did climate change make it so hot that my power went out?” says Michael Wehner, a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who studies how climate change influences extreme weather. “Those are good questions.”
Read this story now for free
To continue reading, sign up for our newsletter and get unlimited access to WABE.org
You can select your preferences for news and local content. We will never share your email address. Learn how your newsletter sign-up will support WABE and Public Media