- Bayern hit nine, Real Madrid and Liverpool win as new Champions League kicks off
- Author John Grisham joins bid to save Texas death row inmate
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- 'Happy' Mbappe strikes on Madrid Champions League debut win over Stuttgart
- Man Utd hit Barnsley for seven in League Cup rout
- Dolphins quarterback Tagovailoa facing concussion layoff
- Stylish Liverpool strut past Milan in confident Champions league opener
- Kane scores four as Bayern put nine past Zagreb in the Champions League
- Mbappe strikes on Madrid Champions League debut win over Stuttgart
- More than 3,600 food packaging chemicals found in human bodies
- Harris calls Trump as assassination scare sparks tensions
- Dow edges down from record as some eye a smaller Fed rate cut
- Sommer vows Inter will 'defend with all we have' to stop Haaland
- Report links meatpacking companies to 'war on nature' in Brazil
- Bolivian ex-leader Morales, backers set out on weeklong protest march
- Smith grateful to McCullum for launching his England career
- Arizona to ask court to rule on voting rights
- Villa make perfect start on Champions League return after 41-year absence
- Israeli supply chain infiltration likely behind Hezbollah pager blasts: analysts
- Rodgers backs Celtic to be 'really competitive' in Champions League
- Spacewalk an 'emotional experience' for private astronauts
- Storm Boris toll rises to 22 in central Europe
- Nine dead, 2,800 wounded as Lebanon's Hezbollah hit by pager blasts
- Boeing, union resume talks as strike empties Seattle plants
- Over 3,600 food packaging chemicals found in human bodies
- Australia's Zampa accepts Ashes chances remote as 100th ODI looms
- UN General Assembly debates call for end to Israeli occupation
- Marseille complete signing of French international Rabiot
- Easterby to fill in as Ireland coach while Farrell is with the Lions
- Hezbollah in Lebanon hit by wave of deadly pager blasts
- Postecoglou taken aback by criticism of his second season success claim
- US, European stocks rise on retail sales, rate cut expectations
- Fendi sees Roaring 20s at Milan Fashion Week in challenging times
- Ronaldo's Al Nassr part ways with coach Castro
- Scottish government backs Glasgow to stage troubled 2026 Commonwealth Games
- Storm Boris toll rises to 21 in central Europe
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- Inflation slows again in Canada to 2%
- US, European stocks rise on eve of Fed rate decision
- EU bans Algerian spread toasted on social media
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs charged with racketeering, sex trafficking
- Trump returns to campaign trail after assassination scare
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- US retail sales see slight rise, beating expectations
- US Fed begins two-day meeting set to end with rate cut
- Exploding Hezbollah pagers wound hundreds across Lebanon
- Runners-up Yokohama thrashed 7-3 in AFC Champions League goal fest
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs to plead not guilty to racketeering, sex trafficking
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Dust to downpour: US weather whiplash shows climate change
A series of "once-in-a-millennium" rainstorms have lashed the United States in recent weeks, flooding areas baked dry by long-term droughts, as human-caused climate change brings weather whiplash.
And scientists warn that global warming means once-rare events are already much more likely, upending the models they have long used to predict possible disasters -- with worse to come.
At least 40 people have been killed in the last month by storms in Kentucky, Illinois, Texas and Missouri, inundating areas that in some cases had seen little to no rain for months.
Up to 12 inches (30 centimeters) fell in one of these storms -- the kind of downpour that statistical models say should only happen once in a thousand years.
"This is 'weather whiplash'," tweeted Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, a non-governmental organization that works on water issues around the world.
It is "caused by an intensification of the global hydrological cycle & how it distributes water around the planet, influenced by human-caused climate change."
The warnings scientists have been sounding for decades about the effects of unchecked fossil fuel use are suddenly coming into focus for millions of people.
A warming planet is not a benign place in a far-off future where it is always a bit sunnier; it's a place of wild swings, where the wets are wetter and the dries are drier. And it's now.
"The commonality between these and other extreme rainfall events is you need just the right set of ingredients to come together," said David Novak, director of the Weather Prediction Center at the National Weather Service.
"You need moisture, you need instability in the atmosphere. And you need some sort of... feature to kind of ignite the storms."
While a rainstorm in Texas or Kentucky or Illinois is not unheard of at this time of year, these events were supercharged by an oversupply of atmospheric moisture -- a direct consequence of the planet being hotter.
"There's scientific consensus absolutely on the fact that warmer air can hold more moisture," Novak told AFP.
"There is more moisture available... for these fronts to tap, and so you can get these really intense rainfall events."
The science is uncontroversial -- if a little complicated for those not familiar with linear equations and difficult-to-pronounce chemistry.
The Clausius–Clapeyron equation shows that for every one degree celsius (1.8 F) the air warms, it can hold seven percent more moisture.
That's what makes hot, equatorial places noticeably more humid than cooler climes, says Novak.
And it's also what's messing with the statistics and making the one-in-1,000-year storms -- like the five that hit the US in the last month -- a lot more common.
Storms like these had a 0.1 percent chance of occurring in any given year in pre-industrial conditions, meaning that on average they would happen once every 1,000 years.
But their percentage chance of happening in a warmer environment that holds more moisture rises dramatically.
In other words, the recurrence interval -- the periods expected between these once relatively rare events -- is shrinking.
"Something that really wasn't very likely at all, just a little bit more moisture can make that quite a bit more likely," said Novak.
M.A.Colin--AMWN