The top climate scientist at the National Atmospheric and Space Administration, James Hansen, has produced a new study showing that the record-breaking type of heat hammering the US and the planet in recent years is normally so rare that its persistence can’t be anything but man-made global warming, reports Seth Borenstein at Associated Press. The research says that the likelihood of such temperatures occurring from the 1950s through the 1980s WAS rarer than 1 in 300 but NOW, the odds are closer to 1 in 10. Statistically what’s happening is not random or normal, but pure and simple climate change, he says. “This is not some scientific theory. We are now experiencing scientific fact,” he added. The study, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, is a blunt departure from most climate research. Based on statistics, not the more typical climate modeling, it blames three killer heat waves purely on global warming: the 2011 Texas-Oklahoma drought, the 2010 Russian and Middle East heat waves, and the 2003 European heat waves. Hansen believes the current US drought and record-breaking temperatures are just the latest example.
New study links current events to climate change. The relentless, weather-gone-crazy type of heat that has blistered the United States and other parts of the world in recent years is so rare that it can’t be anything but man-made global warming, says a new statistical analysis from a top government scientist. Associated Press http://bigstory.ap.org/article/new-study-ties-global-warming-recent-year-heat
