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Climate scientists have a great deal of confidence about the impacts of global warming over a long period of time, decades to centuries—higher temperatures, changes in precipitation, rising sea levels. But if you actually ask a climatologist whether an unusually strong hurricane or a crippling heat wave is actually connected to global warming, you'll always get the same answer: we can't prove it.

But that's beginning to change. In the first major paper of its kind, a new study in the February 17 Nature has found that heavy precipitation is at least partly due to the growing concentration of manmade greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. A team of scientists from Canada and Scotland used powerful computers to analyze the causes behind the rise in storms and heavy snowfall over the past half century. They found that the likelihood of extreme precipitation on any given day rose by 7% between 1951 and 1999—the years covered by the study. That's outside the bounds of normal variability, and the increase only make sense if rising greenhouse gas emissions and climate change are taken into effect. "Human influence on the climate system has the effect of intensifying precipitation extremes," said Francis Zwiers, a climate researcher at Environment Canada in Toronto and the study's lead researcher.

That conclusion shouldn't be that surprising—climatologists have predicted an uptick in extreme weather events as greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere increase. Since warmer air can carry more water vapor, a warmer planet should see heavier rain and other precepitation—and that's what we've begun to see with actual weather.

With help from computer time donated by the public, researchers analyzed the severe rains that flooded England and Wales in 2000, leading to some of the worst flooding in British history.

The researchers concluded that the chances of such a major flood happening at that time were roughly doubled by the rise in greenhouse gases. "Greenhouse gas emissions have affected the odds of floods in England and Wales," said physicist Pardeep Pall of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich).

Given the billions of dollars for climate adaptation at stake, it's vital for scientists to deliver more rapid and accurate analysis of extreme weather events. The study
of the 2000 floods took a decade of work and incredibly complex computer simulations.

Assigning "cause and blam" will also impact international climate negotiations. If developing countries—already on the front lines of global warming—can prove that carbon emissions from rich countries are causing what we once referred to as natural catastrophes, they may well be justified in demanding the equivalent of carbon reparations.

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Devastating floods in Pakistan and Russia's heatwave match predictions of extremes caused by global warming even though it is impossible to blame mankind for single severe weather events, scientists say.

This year is on track to be the warmest since reliable temperature records began in the mid-19th century, beating 1998, mainly due to a build-up of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels, according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

"We will always have climate extremes. But it looks like climate change is exacerbating the intensity of the extremes," said Omar Baddour, chief of climate data management applications at WMO headquarters in Geneva.

Recent extremes include mudslides in China and heat records from Finland to Kuwait -- adding to evidence of a changing climate even as U.N. negotiations on a new global treaty for costly cuts in greenhouse gas emissions have stalled.

Reinsurer Munich Re said a natural catastrophe database it runs "shows that the number of extreme weather events like windstorm and floods has tripled since 1980, and the trend is expected to persist."

The worst floods in Pakistan in 80 years have killed more than 1,600 people and left 2 million homeless.

"Global warming is one reason" for the rare spate of weather extremes, said Friedrich-Wilhelm Gerstengarbe, a professor at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

DOWNPOURS

He pointed to the heatwave and related forest fires in Russia, floods in Pakistan, rains in China and downpours in countries including Germany and Poland. "We have four such extremes in the last few weeks. This is very seldom," he said.

The weather extremes, and the chance of a record-warm 2010, undercut a view of skeptics that the world is merely witnessing natural swings perhaps caused by variations in the sun's output.

Russia's worst drought in decades has led to fires that have almost doubled death rates in Moscow to around 700 per day, an official said. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced a grain export ban from August 15 to December 31.

Nearly 1,500 people have died in landslides and flooding caused by months of torrential rains across China, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said.

One study concluded that global warming had doubled the chances of heatwaves similar to a scorching 2003 summer in Europe, in which 35,000 people died. Those temperatures could not convincingly be explained by natural variations.

"It may be possible to use climate models to determine whether human influences have changed the likelihood of certain types of extreme events," the U.N. panel of climate scientists said in its latest 2007 report.

That report said it was at least 90 percent likely that most warming in the past 50 years was caused by mankind.

Most countries agreed at a U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen last year to limit a rise in average world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, a tough goal since temperatures already rose 0.7C in the 20th century.

The latest round of U.N. climate talks in Bonn, from August 2-6, ended with growing doubts that a global climate treaty could still be agreed as hoped by some nations in 2010 despite deep splits about sharing the burden of curbs on emissions.

U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid has all but abandoned climate change legislation this year. The United States, the number two greenhouse gas emitter behind China, is the only major industrialized nation with no law to cut emissions.

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agree with Happy that stopping deforestation, limiting pollution, making our energy use more officient, taking care of the earth and being responsible are things that most people agree are good, so if we practice these things then things will improve and it doesn't have to be a political issue.

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