Declared interests: Dr. Cobb is a member of the RI Legislative Study Commission on Climate Change Impacts and Solutions and the Barrington Energy and Resilience Committee.
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ANCHOR
AS 20-25 WINDS DOWN… AND WE LOOK BACK ON THE BIG EVENTS OF THE YEAR… IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE THE BIG WEATHER STORIES… FROM THE L-A WILDFIRES… TO THE DEADLY FLOODS IN TEXAS… TO THE HEAT WAVES IN THE MIDWEST AND NORTHEAST.
VO
WHEN IT COMES TO WEATHER…IT’S ANOTHER YEAR FOR THE RECORD BOOKS. FOR ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY AT BROWN UNIVERSITY… SAYS SCIENCE SHOWS… THAT EXTREME EVENTS ARE BECOMING MORE AND MORE LIKELY… AS THE CLIMATE CHANGES.
SOT
Duration:1:54
Super: Dr. Kim Cobb – Professor, Brown University
“Climate change is really responsible for any number of a host of weather extremes that we’re experiencing right now. And that’s because when you warm the surface of the planet, which we have done to the tune of about 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit thus far since the pre-industrial, you do a couple important things. For fires, you create more fire weather. You bake the land surface, making more fuel available, and that’s exactly what happened with the fires out west. You also kind of supercharge the atmosphere with more water vapor so that when a rainfall event does occur, and this has been the case across the United States this year, you’re experiencing much more rainfall per unit time. It’s overwhelming drainage systems, natural and manmade, causing these extreme flood events. And then, of course, on the heat domes and heat waves. This is something that we do expect to be marching into ever hotter territory every summer, breaking new records every year, which is unfortunately what we’ve done, and this has dramatic public health impacts.”
VO
LOOKING AHEAD TO 20-26… DOCTOR COBB SAYS ONE BIT OF GOOD NEWS… IS THAT WORLDWIDE EMISSIONS MAY LEVEL OUT OR DECLINE… DUE TO COUNTRIES LIKE CHINA MAKING THE SWITCH TO RENEWABLE SOURCES OF ENERGY.
Raw, full-length interview covers:
The role of climate change in extreme weather events in 2025, including the Los Angeles fires, the flooding in Texas and elsewhere across the nation, and heat domes that shattered records across the Midwest and Northeast;
What it means that no hurricanes made landfall in the U.S., despite a forecast for an above-average hurricane season;
How 2025 fits into overall climate-related trends; and
Her research, which involves studying the past and present climate to make predictions about future climate change impacts, with a focus on climate extremes and coastal flooding.
