A Summer of Climate Disasters
Climate change has made extreme
weather increasingly normal.
Sept.
7, 2022, 6:41 a.m. ET
Heat waves in the U.S., wildfires in
Europe, floods in Asia: This summer has shown how the climate crisis has made
extreme weather a part of everyday life.
Some of the worst recent damage has
taken place in Pakistan. Floods have submerged more than a third of the country
and killed at least 1,300 people.
Scientists can’t say yet with
certainty that climate change caused the flooding, but experts told me that it
was most likely a contributor. As The Times explained, climate change is making severe floods
likelier and more intense. “These off-the-charts events are going to happen
more often, and this is just one of those examples,” said Jennifer Francis, a
senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center.
The floods followed a brutal heat
wave in Pakistan earlier this year that led to temperatures above 120 degrees
Fahrenheit. Scientists have already concluded that global warming made that
heat wave much likelier.
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