Hurricane Sandy and Typhoon Haiyan Tied to Global Warming, Scientists Argue

Humans are not just loading the dice in favor of extreme weather events, as many scientific studies have shown. They are also changing the characteristics and impacts of those events, be it in the form of an unprecedentedly strong and extremely deadly Typhoon Haiyan or the damaging Boulder, Colorado, floods of 2013… Trenberth and his two coauthors received some measured support from Jennifer Francis, a research professor at Rutgers University who has written a series of studies showing that rapid Arctic warming may be altering weather patterns across the Northern Hemisphere… "Their overall conclusion, and I agree with it, is that in efforts to determine the role of climate change in any single event, one should focus on climate changes that are irrefutable- such as rising sea levels, warmer tropospheric temperatures, increased water vapor, warmer sea surface temperatures, and changing soil moisture- all on a case-specific basis," she said in an email.