3 $100 Billion Hurricanes, A Fire That Jumped The Columbia Gorge - Summer 2017 New Normal
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The exact link between such events and long-term global warming is still being calculated, but the storms this summer fulfilled the predictions of many climate scientists that extreme weather events are going to become more common and more extreme as the world continues to get warmer.
Some people, who claim they’re just being skeptical, say these weather events and the warming that preceded them are just natural cycles. Let’s test that hypothesis with a prediction. Background: When scientists talk about “average annual temperature” they mean a number that’s calculated by averaging all the weather reports from stations all over the globe for an entire year. By this measure, 14 of the 15 hottest years ever recorded occurred in the last 20 years.
Yes, cyclical changes did contribute to record high global annual temperatures in 2014, 2015 and 2016. But when was the last time scientists recorded a new record low temperature? Temperatures do rise and fall in cycles over time, but the last global record low temperature was recorded in 1911. That is, more than 100 years ago, at the dawn of the fossil-fueled industrial revolution.
The human cause of global warming is indeed only a hypothesis as the “skeptics” and deniers like to say. One test of a hypothesis is its ability to make accurate predictions about future events. I’ll make a prediction and we’ll see if it comes true. I predict that 2018 will not match the record low set in 1911. But maybe the new record low will come in 2019. Who knows, right?
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http://www.union-bulletin.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/welcome-to-the-new-normal/article_54bbd1d4-c0bd-11e7-8195-e743f173fa21.html
