3 ms·
I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand correctly. Do you mean a) examples for increasing frequency of weather extremes? Or b) present day damages attributed to cl
by ben_WG 3y ago
I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand correctly. Do you mean a) examples for increasing frequency of weather extremes? Or b) present day damages attributed to climate change (which can only be attributed in probability: this heat wave is X times more likely thanks to human emissions..)
If it's a), examples are that the 10 hottest years on record occurred in the past 13 years; also increasing are the volatility of rainfall, the likelihood, duration, and intensity of heat waves, the arctic temperature, the temperature in the tundra, the acidity in the oceans, etc..
If it's b) you can look at area of bush and forest fires, duration of droughts, areas of flooding, desertification etc. which are all increasing, and which cause tangible damage.
Of course you have a good point; it's nontrivial to "distribute" the damage of, say, the flood in Pakistan last year, into: climate change, bad urban planning, high population density, bad political response etc. But the bottom line is: the climate is changing quicker than we are adapting to it. The fact that many factors come together, and that it's complicated, doesn't mean that this isn't a factor.
I think one of the main misconceptions is that the discussion is too centred on average global temperature, or average rainfall. It's the increasing frequency of wild fluctuations (droughts, floods, heat waves) that creates the challenges.
If you like I can dig out references etc., I just wasn't sure what kind of specific examples you were looking for.