Headline

2021 brought a wave of extreme weather disasters. Scientists say worse lies ahead.

A home burns as flames from the Dixie fire tear through the Indian Falls neighborhood of unincorporated Plumas County, Calif., in July. The massive fire churned across nearly 1 million acres. (Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images)

Climate Signals summary: Human-caused climate change fueled a wave of extreme weather disasters this year including wildfires, drought, flooding, and heat waves.

Article excerpt:

Scores of studies presented this week at the world’s largest climate science conference offered an unequivocal and unsettling message: Climate change is fundamentally altering what kind of weather is possible, and its fingerprint can be found in the rising number of disasters that have claimed lives and upended livelihoods around the world.

Record-shattering heat waves, devastating floods, scorching wildfires and persistent droughts are among the litany of catastrophes scientists say they can definitively link to human activities — primarily the burning of fossil fuels.

The world must find a way to cope with this new era of climate disasters, researchers warn. Because without major changes, the forecast will grow only worse with time.

You can read the rest of this article here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/12/17/climate-change-extreme-weather-future/