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Thing that reminds us of global warming (of the day) -- photo gallery

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American



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The full title should be "Thing that reminds us of global warming, but, like all individual weather phenomena, can't be proved to be directly linked to it on account of the overwhelming complexity of the Earth's climactic system, which manifests itself in seemingly random (when localized) temperature, rainfall, and windspeed variations--a photo gallery (of the day)" but that wouldn't fit. The fact remains, as the climate changes, some areas will get wetter, many will become drier, and the overwhelming majority will become hotter. Leading, almost inevitably, to things like this:

A Scorching Summer: Thousands Evacuated as Wildfires Rage on Canary Islands

Tens of thousands of residents and tourists have been evacuated on the Canary Islands as wildfires rage out of control. The islands' rugged terrain is hampering efforts to fight the fires which are devasting pine forests and nature reserves.
In light of recent findings in top-shelf journals about the impact that climate change has already had on the weather, and the see-sawing debate about the link between global warming and hurricanes, expect stories like this--if only as a result of the public's and therefore the media's enhanced attention to these matters--to become as regular a part of the daily news digest of the 21st century as the box scores or, well, the weather.