Is this climate change, or just a particularly severe bunch of weather flukes happening in close succession due to the climate’s own natural variability? But climate change acts by loading the dice on many types of weather events. That shouldn’t be comforting; climate change could be playing a larger role than we expect in many of these events. Even without climate change, it would behoove us to catch up on their maintenance, or, where these dams are no longer truly needed, remove them. What we know about climate change and extreme weather should strengthen that motivation; what we don’t know should strengthen it even more.

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Persons: Adam H, Sobel, Columbia University’s Lamont, Adam Sobel Danny Goldfield, Daniel, it’s, El Niño, El Niños, El Organizations: Columbia, Fu Foundation School of Engineering, Applied, Twitter, CNN, Humanitarian Affairs, El Locations: Massachusetts, Hong Kong, Greece, Spain, Libya, El, Europe