Record heat, derecho storm: Does global warming get blame? So
what's up with the U.S. weather this year, a warm winter, early
droughts and a multistate "derecho" windstorm before July. Is
global warming cooking our goose with extreme weather events, or
not? At the same time, they caution against pointing to a
warming climate as the direct cause of any one bit of wild
weather this year, even as much of the nation sweated out a
record-breaking heat wave through the start of July, one
expected to break by Monday. "There is a little bit of truth in
both views," says Princeton climate scientist Ngar-Cheung Lau.
"What we can say is that the long-term trend is for heat waves
to have longer durations and higher temperatures." While U.S.
temperature records fall, this year has globally only been the
11th-warmest one on record as of May, according to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Still, there is little
doubt that global warming is occurring, most likely increasing
average surface temperatures wor