What is “extreme” weather? Why are people talking about it these days? “Extreme" weather is an unusual weather event swell as rainfall, a drought or a beat wave in the wrong place or at the wrong time. In theory, they are very rare. But these days our TV screens are constantly showing such extreme weather events. Take just three news stories from 2010: 28 orjmeters of rain fell on Rio de Janeiro in 24 hours. Nashville, USA had 33 centimeters of rain in two days and there was ’s: xd rainfall in Pakistan. The effects of this kind of rainfall are dramatic and lethal. In Rio de Janeiro, landslides followed, burying hundreds people. In Pakistan, the floods affected 20 million people. Meanwhile, other parts of the world suffer devastating droughts Australia, Russia and East Africa have been hit in the last ten years. And then there are unexpected heat waves, such as r 2003 in Europe. That summer, 35,000 deaths were said to be heat-related.
So, what is happening to our weather? Are these extreme events part of a natural cycle? Or are they caused by human activity and its effects on the Earth's climate? Peter Miller says it's probably a mixture of both of these things. On the ori hand, the most important influences on weather events are natural cycles in the climate. Two of the most famous weather cycles, El Nino and La Nina, originate in the Pacific Ocean. The heat from the warm ocean rises high into the atmosphere and affects weather all around the world. On the other hand, the temperature of the Earth's oceans is slowly but steadily going up. And this is a result of human activity. We are producing greenhouse gases that trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere .This heat warms up the atmosphere, land and oceans. Warmer oceans produce more water vapor - think of heating a pa* of water in your kitchen. Turn up the heat, it produces steam more quickly. Satellite data tells us that the water vapor in rej atmosphere has gone up by four percent in 25 years. This warm, wet air turns into the rain, storms, hurricanes anf typhoons that we are increasingly experiencing. Climate scientist, Michael Oppenheimer, says that we need to face the reality of climate change. And we also need to act now to save lives and money in the future.