WASHINGTON – As temperatures across the country continue to shatter records, many people are asking themselves if climate change is to blame.
Some scientists say the horrendous wildfires, oppressive heat waves and devastating droughts are just a taste of what’s to come. But skeptics say it’s nature being characteristically fickle.
“It’s kind of hard to pinpoint this single heat wave or the heat that we’ve been experiencing across the country to climate change,” says Jake Crouch, a scientist at the National Climatic Data Center. “There are local factors and regional factors that lead to weather conditions in any given location.”
“But these warm, dry conditions are what we would expect with climate change,” he adds.
Meteorologist Joe Bastardi is not convinced. He says these extreme temperatures are part of normal patterns that exist outside of carbon emission concerns.
In the 1930s, the Dust Bowl settled over many parts of the United States, drying up land and causing severe droughts throughout the country. Then from 1954 to 1960, eight hurricanes hit the Eastern Seaboard. Six of those occurred within two years of each other.
Hurricane Irene and the derecho are just part of a similar cycle, Bastardi says.
“The American public does not realize what happened before,” he says, adding if the 1950s were any indication, “we’ve got another six, seven years of this kind of stuff going on.”
But with D.C. close to breaking the record for hottest July and wildfires devastating Colorado and California, the impact of extreme weather has become the bigger question.
So far this year, more than 2.1 million acres have burned in wildfires, more than 113 million people in the U.S. were in areas under extreme heat advisories last Friday, two-thirds of the country is experiencing drought, and earlier in June, deluges flooded Minnesota and Florida.
“The agricultural sector is taking a big hit. The wildfires in the west have been getting a lot of attention and impacting homes and families and businesses,” Crouch says. “The impact is real and is going to have impacts on everyday life of everyday people.”
Still, as weather continues its cycle, the next decade could prove to be significantly cooler than this one, Bastardi says.
“We’ll be going back to the 60s and 70s” where winters were cold and snowy, he says. “So who knows? Some of these people may be screaming ‘Ice Age!’ in 20 years.”
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