Hurricanes, droughts, and other extreme weather raise the question: Was that related to global warming?
The provocative answer that Kevin Trenberth, distinguished senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, proposed in 2012 can be roughly summarized as yes. All weather events are related to climate change, he argued, because the atmosphere is hotter and moister than it was before humans started filling it with greenhouse gases. "The answer to the oft-asked question of whether an event is caused by climate change is that it is the wrong question," Trenberth wrote in the journal Climatic Change.
