Is there a chance that the terrible rains we are having in Seattle this November are also related to global warming?
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skfinkel (
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November 22nd, 2006
I thought a new warming trend would mean dryer and better weather in the Pacific Northwest.
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7 Answers
Global warming is actually in some ways a misleading name, which is why some scientists call it "climate change" or "climate crisis". Very small changes in temperature can lead to much larger storms and disruptions. For example, Katrina was caused by global warming because warmer water temperatures in teh Gulf caused what would have been a level 1 or 2 storm to intensity to a category 4 or 5.
just as global warming didn't directly cause Katrina, but did cause the storm to intensify, it could be that g.w. is causing more intense rain in Seattle. that's just a guess...I don't know enough about the science to say for sure.
Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, does a really good job of explaining a lot of this, and it's surprisingly engaging...it's coming out on DVD soon, or you can already buy the book version.
My impression is that it's hard to every assign the cause of some event directly to global climate change - there is just a large gap in the specific research needed to assign causation. At the same time, there should be little doubt that the effects of G.C.C. are real and present, and it may well be "likely" that major weather shifts have something to do with G.C.C.
when in doubt, the answer is yes. there have been crazy weather patterns across the world for the past couple of years, and no scientist has any hard proof to say for certain that they were caused by global warming. but, most of these trends correspond to exactly what's been predicted.
they're saying 2006 will beat 2005 for the hottest year on record--- the hottest year in the history of weather recording. this means different climate effects for different places, but usually they say more extreme weather patterns. so, maybe for seattle it means now it floods, then there's a drought.
It’s probably just due to a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil.
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