I Told You So ...

Well, it seems like the media are finally realizing what your science teacher has been telling you for years:

Higher average temperatures means more water evaporating.  The energy that evaporated the water (latent heat) is released when the water condenses into clouds.   So warmer air = more water = more energy in the atmosphere.

As published this morning in the Hartford Courant, which is owned by the Tribune, which is hardly an unbiased source of information:

"As the climate gets warmer, you put more moisture into the atmosphere, and it just gets a little more violent," said Richard A. Houghton, president of the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth, Mass. ...

Extensive collections of scientific data have been the source documents for meta-analyses saying, in effect, that big changes are underway, disrupting a mostly stable climatological period of thousands of years. ...

Perhaps most worrisome is the greater likelihood of severe weather events, such as floods. ...

The Northeast could see 20 percent to 30 percent more winter precipitation, and more of that could be rain rather than snow.... Heavy downpours of rain have increased across the Northeast in recent decades, causing intense spring flooding in 2006, 2007 and 2010.

Cities that experience only a few 100-degree days each summer might average 20 such days per summer while others, including Hartford, would average nearly 30 days at 100 degrees or hotter.

Yes, kiddies, it is too late to avoid all of the side effects of climate change - but we can avoid the worst of it if we burn less, and get our electricity from wind and sun.  Coal and petroleum and natural gas are NOT your friends, no matter what the nice television ads tell you.