Thursday, May 19, 2011

Scientists, planners, insurer: Weather extremes are 'global weirding' caused partly by humans

The Union of Concerned Scientists, which was formed to warn of the risks of a global nuclear holocaust, held a conference call with reporters yesterday to sound the alarm bell about global warming. Deborah Zabarenko of Reuters listened and wrote, "Heavy rains, deep snowfalls, monster floods and killing droughts are signs of a 'new normal' of extreme U.S. weather events fueled by climate change, scientists and government planners said on Wednesday."

"It's a new normal and I really do think that global weirding is the best way to describe what we're seeing," said climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University. "We are used to certain conditions and there's a lot going on these days that is not what we're used to, that is outside our current frame of reference."

"Hayhoe, other scientists, civic planners and a manager at the giant Swiss Re reinsurance firm all cited human-caused climate change as a factor pushing this shift toward more extreme weather," Zabarenko writes.

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