Difficulty of Addressing Whether Climate Change Causes Floods
- Sep 17, 2016
- 1 min read
It’s being called “a hurricane with no wind”—a catastrophic flood that has caused at least 13 deaths and damaged at least 40,000 homes. But Louisiana’s emergency is causing another kind of flood: An outpouring of concern that the cause is anthropogenic climate change. Is the flood in Louisiana (or, for that matter, others around the world) really the result of human activity? Here are five things to know.
The idea is simple, but sensible: Warming climate causes increases in water vapor—a greenhouse gas that can be found wherever humidity can be measured. This warms the atmosphere more and pushes the amount of water vapor even higher in a vicious cycle known as water vapor feedback.
Though other greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere, too, scientists now think that water vapor is a “major player” in climate change itself because of the amount of energy it traps. In a warming climate, all that water vapor above can translate to more rain on the ground. And Earth certainly doesn’t lack heat, with June 2016 clocking in as the hottest month on record. This month, Louisiana had record levels of so-called precipitable water—the depth of water in the atmosphere at any given time. And lots of precipitable water means lots and lots of rain.
Anthony
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