January Was Awash With Extreme Winter Storms. Climate Change Likely Played a Role
By Kristoffer Tigue
Winter storm and flood alerts continue this week for millions of Americans following a weekend of flash floods in states such as Pennsylvania and Illinois, where many residents were forced to evacuate their homes as they took on water. It’s the third weekend this month when large swaths of the country have been doused with extreme wintry conditions—a trend that’s becoming increasingly more likely because of climate change, recent analyses show.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.