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This is inaccurate, and I think some comments replying to you are incomplete. "Climate change" changes the probability distribution of weather events, in partic

This is inaccurate, and I think some comments replying to you are incomplete. "Climate change" changes the probability distribution of weather events, in particular it changes the range (i.e. extremes) as well. So, extreme events such as record-breaking hot days, record-breaking showers etc... are still relevant to climate change. This means not only warmer/rainier days are gonna be more common but also days so hot/rainy that were not observed before will be possible. Say, if max temp observed before in a particular area was 45C, now it'll be possible to observe 50C (AND at the same time 45C will be more likely). This can be extremely rare, but the fact that 50C will be observable will be enough evidence to support this. Do we know whether this particular event was caused by climate change? Of course not, this is a philosophical question, we'd have to discuss what is causality. But statistically climate change will likely make extreme events more common, so when we do observe an extreme rain even like this, it seems worth mentioning that climate change will make events like this more prevalent.

Lutger 4y ago
There is a field of climate science, called attribution studies, which is about figuring out the likelihood or degree to which climate change contributed to specific extreme events. This is of course in line with your comment, but for specific weather events we can do slightly better than just saying climate change can it more prevalent: https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/10/04/attribution-science-linking-climate-change-to-extreme-weather/ https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/10/04/attribution-sci...
refurb 4y ago
You say it's inaccurate, but then your last paragraph basically agrees "Do we know whether this particular event was caused by climate change? Of course not"?
- gnulinux 4y ago
  There is a difference between knowing that something is caused by climate change, and knowing that something is strongly correlated with climate change. There is no doubt that if we let CO2 emissions continue, extreme weather events like OP will be more likely. This doesn't mean every time it's warm or rainy or cold the effective cause is the excess CO2 buildup.

Lutger 4y ago

There is a field of climate science, called attribution studies, which is about figuring out the likelihood or degree to which climate change contributed to specific extreme events. This is of course in line with your comment, but for specific weather events we can do slightly better than just saying climate change can it more prevalent: https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/10/04/attribution-science-linking-climate-change-to-extreme-weather/ https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/10/04/attribution-sci...

refurb 4y ago

You say it's inaccurate, but then your last paragraph basically agrees "Do we know whether this particular event was caused by climate change? Of course not"?

gnulinux 4y ago
There is a difference between knowing that something is caused by climate change, and knowing that something is strongly correlated with climate change. There is no doubt that if we let CO2 emissions continue, extreme weather events like OP will be more likely. This doesn't mean every time it's warm or rainy or cold the effective cause is the excess CO2 buildup.