EARLY this year touring a droughtstricken fruit farm in Cali

EARLY this year, touring a drought-stricken fruit farm in California, Barack Obama cited the state’s three-year dry spell, the worst on record, as an example of the harm that climate change can cause. Politicians like this sort of pronouncement. David Cameron, Britain’s prime minister, said in 2014 that he very much suspected that climate change was behind floods in parts of the country’s south-west. In contrast, climate scientists have been ultra-cautious about attributing specific weather events to global warming. Because the weather is by its nature variable, it is impossible to know whether climate change caused any particular drought or flood. So the scientists have steered away from making firm connections.

Until now. A new branch of climate science is starting to provide answers to the question: was this drought (or heatwave or storm) at least partly attributable to climate change? In some cases, the answer seems to be a cautious yes. As the research progresses, it could change public perceptions and government policy.

For years, the central debate of climate science has focused on how much global mean surface temperatures would rise by 2100. This is so important that a target for mean temperature rises is likely to be embodied in an international treaty to be signed in Paris later this year. The increase in the mean is the simplest way to measure the long-term impact of climate change. But it has drawbacks. It makes global warming seem like something that will happen in 100 years’ time. Most people do not think about global temperatures but local ones. And climate change affects ecosystems not just through increases in the mean, but also through changes in the extremes—more intense droughts, say. Extremes also have a profound impact on people: a heatwave in 2003 caused about 70,000 premature deaths in Europe. Focusing on links between climate change and the local weather thus makes sense in terms of both science and public understanding.

In principle, attributing the weather to climate change might seem straightforward. The two are so closely related that the climate can be defined as the average daily weather over a long period (or, as Edward Lorenz, a mathematician and meteorologist, once put it, “climate is what you expect; weather is what you get”).

Of butterflies and bad weather

In practice, though, there are so many influences upon the weather—famously expressed by Lorenz’s idea of a butterfly’s wingbeat in one part of the world causing a hurricane in another—that isolating any individual factor is hard. That remains true. It is not possible to say categorically that climate change has caused any individual storm, flood or heatwave.

But scientific attribution does not require certainty; it deals in probabilities. Even now, doctors cannot be sure that a case of lung cancer has been caused by smoking (the patient might have got the disease anyway). Nevertheless, it is possible to say that smoking increases the risk of cancer by a certain amount and that smoking causes cancer in a general sense. In a similar way, scientists are now able to say that climate change increases the risk of a particular weather pattern by a measurable amount and, in some cases, that a particular episode is almost impossible to imagine without global warming. That is as near as you can get to saying global warming caused a weather event.

The science of weather attribution started in 2003 with an article in Nature, “Liability for climate change”by Myles Allen of Oxford University. It showed that human contributions to climate change can be calculated by looking at what the climate would have been like if people had not increased greenhouse-gas emissions. That meant comparing observations of the weather with computer models of what might have happened without climate change. Much climate science depends on such models, which describe the complexities of the climate. By running them using different assumptions (for example, no increase in greenhouse-gas emissions, or more volcanic activity), and comparing the results with reality, it is possible to reveal the probable effects of the emissions. With lung cancer it is possible to compare groups of smokers and non-smokers; with climate change computers have to simulate the equivalent of the non-smokers.

The trouble is that weather observations are limited and climate models imperfect. Dr Allen showed that, by quantifying the uncertainties, you can calculate the probability of a weather pattern occurring. That made it possible to say that man-made climate change made this or that weather event twice as likely, five times more likely, or less likely.

Dr Allen argues that the study of weather attribution followed naturally from the establishment, in the 2000s, of a scientific consensus that humans are largely responsible for climate change. Heidi Cullen of Climate Central, an American research group, points out that there was also a technical contribution. The climate is global and climate models are, too. Weather, on the other hand, is local—and until recently models were not precise enough to describe it. In the past few years, though, it has become possible to impose a finer grid on the global picture. Computers have become powerful enough, and enough data have been collected, to describe what is happening in an area as small as 25km by 25km. The result has been the development of regional climate models.

Turbulence ahead

Most of the episodes that have so far come under the microscope have been large, long-lasting ones, such as Australia’s heatwave in 2013, or California’s continuing drought. But one study, by Hans von Storch of the Institute of Coastal Research in Germany, looked at a storm that passed through northern Germany and southern Denmark in 2013 and lasted less than a week. (It found no evidence of human influence.) Traditional climate research is a little like epidemiology, the study of disease at the level of the population; Dr von Storch’s study was a bit like an autopsy.

The number of such studies is proliferating. Dr Allen’s outfit at Oxford has put its regional climate models online so anyone can download them. Hundreds are doing so, running their own studies and making this project, called weather@home, one of the largest examples of “citizen science” in the world. The science of weather attribution now has a network of researchers and a group of institutions which shapes the studies (in addition to Oxford and Climate Central, it includes the University of Melbourne, America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute). There is also an academic journal which publishes most of them: the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society(BAMS).

Though the groups use somewhat different approaches, their conclusions are strikingly similar. The strongest evidence for human influence can be seen in heatwaves, such as Australia’s “angry summer” of 2013, when average temperatures were 1.5°C above the norm for 1911-40. In a study in Geophysical Research Letters, David Karoly of the University of Melbourne argues that it is possible to say with considerable confidence that human influence increased the risk of such high temperatures fivefold, at least. The heatwave of 2013, he argues, would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change.
The most recent BAMS contained nine studies of heatwaves in 2013, including in Europe, China, Japan and Korea. All showed that man-made climate change had increased the likelihood of exceptional heat. In Korea daily minimum summer temperatures were 2.2°C above the 1971-2000 average; the study found that climate change had boosted the chance of this happening tenfold. Germany is likely to have a summer as hot as that of 2013 about once in seven years now; before industrialisation the odds were one in 80. For Europe, the odds rose even more, by 35 times—the result of changes to ocean currents and the great Arctic melt, and to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols (which, like the melting of Arctic ice, are influenced by natural variability, as well as humans). You would expect more heatwaves with more global warming; they are two sides of the same coin. But climate change also seems to be contributing to droughts, though the evidence here is weaker. The link is intuitively plausible: higher temperatures speed up evaporation, reduce soil moisture and lead to drought. One BAMS study of California also found that atmospheric pressure patterns associated with droughts in the past are becoming more likely than they would be without greenhouse-gas emissions. On the other hand, another study concluded that global warming increases the risk of drought in California in some ways but decreases it in others, leaving no net change. Forthcoming research on drought in south-east Brazil suggests other sorts of human influence, such as population growth and water consumption, also matter. Of four studies of droughts in the most recent BAMS, two showed that man-made influences were increasing the risk; two found no link or an uncertain one. The evidence is weaker still when it comes to storms. It is often said that climate change is making hurricanes and other intense storms more frequent. But the BAMS researchers looked at three unusual storms in 2013—the one in northern Germany; a blizzard in South Dakota and autumn snow in the Pyrenees—and found no evidence of human influence in any of them.

1.Read through the article on global weather patterns. First summarize the main claim then outline the arguments included that support it. Define two arguments using: claims, warrants and evidence, counter –argument, rebuttal; then state If you agree or disagree both the article’s major claim and the two arguments you presented. 2.Find and describe examples of both inductive and deductive reasoning in the article; describe why it is one or the other (or both). Define and describe the use of ethos pathos and logos in the article. 3.Explain the photo in the context of the article. How does it impact the claims being made?
4.State if the argument is legitimate. (Remember whether it’s legitimate is not the same as whether you agree with it or not!) If it is not, name the fallacy or fallacies and explain why it has that particular fallacy or fallacies.

A.You did not eat your vegetables, so you should not get desert because in some parts of the world, children are starving.
B.The New Yorker I san old and venerable magazine; it should not consider changing its appearance.
C.Don’t listen to anything Joe Bob Politician has to say, he is a nasty guy.
D.Mister A says: We should reduce the penalties for smoking Marijuana to reduce prison population. Mister B responds: You are wrong! Getting rid of all penalties for drug possession would create chaos in society.
E.A little boy says to his dad: you have to get me a football for my birthday, because I won’t be able to play outside unless you do.
F.If we privatize the prison system, we will be handing over the justice system to corporations.
G.Justin Bieber drinks Coke and not Pepsi, so it must taste better than Pepsi.
H,The last time I got on a bus someone was rude to me; the world is just becoming a ruder place.
I. Whenever the rooster crows down the street my alarm goes off, so the rooster must be making it go off.
J. Just like AIDS, the addiction to oil is spreading across the world.

Solution

a climatic patern is any reoccuring characteristic of the environment which change accordingly to the geological cycle of the earth atmosphere.in short it change the pattern acordingly to the rotation of the planet earth. some pattern repeat again and again in every year like monsoon. these are fixed as you know.

according to the given contex or from this article

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1) summary of the article= according to the aticle it is an investigation upon the climatic pattern and its changes.in us or you can say in whole world it is too convinent to say wether it will suitable to say any climatic change can lead to flood like situation or it may rise the overall temperature of our planet.this two changes of climate may vary from region to region.some people are assuming that there is no any correlation between these pattern event.but scientists are still investigate to the fact that what will be the result in future and will the planet be suitable for the lives. some politicians are also engaged im it and have tension regarding the situation. this can be seen in many climatic adverse stickened problems which are not only faced by human beings but by flora and fauna too..

the arguments related to the condition is already measured by scientist and prime minister that the scope of flood in britain is beyond the possiblities. i think that it is some unpridictable matter which we can just assme but cant be reach to the actual fact.so from the conclusion i am disagree to this.

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2) ethose is an appeal to ethics and it is the means to convincing someone of the character of the parsuader. but pathose is an appeal to emotion and is a way of conviencing and motivating the audience by creating an emotional response .logo is an appeal to logic and it is the way of peruading the audience by reasons.

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3)the photo is claim to be the future of our society nation and world that how it will lead to the rising of adverse climatic pattern change by the future.it may lead to serious condition to the planet earth which will bring back to the hell.scientist of whole world are involvedin solving this at a glance.

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4)

A) the argument is legimate as if we take care of our vegitation than it will maintain our ecological balance and hence stop any kind of environmental problem but for case of starvation i want to say that eat according to requirement and maintain the balance in between.

B) it is not the legimate argument..

C)not legimate as if you holding the power of ruling than you should listen to everybody first and then decide what to do,some kind of nasty is there ..

E) the child is know that the danger of climate take place and he is not wanted to get hunt so he think he will be safe inside home. according to this he is legimate. so bad future if this happen.

G) justine bieber eat coke or pepsi is according to his taste buds .there is nothing to be a case of legimate or spam.

H) agree to this. as the world growth rapidly and man are chasing behind the aristocracy of life .they are so depressed and under the condition of anger that they dont bother of anybody. they just self relient.so they fight and thought that they are only correct.

I) not legimate.

J)legimate and agree to this as people are nowadays uses lots of oil in their food .this will lead to many dieases in there body so it may be consider as AIDS..