Fed report links global warming to extreme weather, predicts more floods and droughts

(Photo of flood in downtown Cedar Rapids from Flickr and The U.S. Geological Survey and photographer Don Becker.)

News Update 1: In the midst of record flooding in the Midwest, causing at least $3 billion in crop loss alone, and an almost decade-long drought in the Southwest, a new government report links extreme weather with human-produced heat-trapping gases and has some dire predictions for more deadly weather events in the future. The report, “Weather Extremes in a Changing Climate,” released last week, expressed high confidence that extreme rainfalls, such as the ones that caused the floods, as well as intense droughts and more heat waves will hit the U.S. as temperatures continue to rise. The rains are expected primarily in the North and the droughts in the Southwest. The changes are already apparent, the report said. It also predicted stronger and more frequent hurricanes (though there is some scientific disagreement about that), winter storms with higher winds and waves by century’s end, and disappearing summer sea ice that could erode shorelines in Alaska and Canada. The report, led by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), was an acknowledgment by the Bush Administration that global warming is and will cause catastrophic weather. But do something about it? Naaa. (Sources: ClimateWire,
the Daily Green, washingtonpost.com, CNN)