Global 'weirdness' seen in summer's extreme weather events

A melting Greenland glacier, summer heat waves, a devastating "derecho," drought: Is it all part of global warming or "global weirdness"? A plague of extreme weather events, from Greenland briefly thawing to the derecho thunderstorms that knocked out power for millions across the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest has struck this summer. Above all, an exceptional drought has marked roughly 50% of all U.S. counties nationwide as federal disaster areas. That's on top of last year, which saw record U.S. tornadoes, floods and a drought that tortured Texas and Oklahoma.

 Has global warming arrived not with a bang or a whimper, but with wild weather? It's starting to look that way, suggests science writer Michael Lemonick, co-author of this year's Global Weirdness: Severe Storms, Deadly Heat Waves, Relentless Drought, Rising Seas and the Weather of the Future. "In retrospect, we'll look back and say we were starting to make changes to climate back then," Lemonick says. "But you can only say that in retrospect." Reviewed by a panel of climate scientists, Global Weirdness looks at global warming and finds temperatures, heat waves and sea levels all increasing as predicted. Many extreme events, such as tornadoes or floods, look to be only suggestive of the results of a warming climate.

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