years past? yes, it s unprecedented in the way that was said. the combination of changes in land use, also the changes in the drying out, tropical forests around the world are not getting the same amount of precipitation and that also is happening on the island of maui. in fact, 16% of it is in a severe drought and around another 20% is in moderate drought. these drought conditions, not getting the same amount of rain by former la nina s that used to give rain, they don t give as much rain anymore. the rain systems are passing, a little off access. they re not getting the rain. so these drying conditions, warming atmosphere because of climate change, and then you add a hurricane. hurricane winds that are far away, category 4 dora on tuesday, and 60 miles per hour winds in the maui area. this is a lethal combination
Harm-s-way
World
Hawaii
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Changes
Drying-out
Land-use
Forests
Yes
Drought
Maui-island
Amount
feeling, that it is, we have turned a corner here. and anyone who is sitting in congress right now, who is still denying climate change, you know, it is a dereliction, a dereliction of duty. it s not that climate change is coming, it is here. these hundred year floods are gonna be turning into five year floods before we know it. and we have seen this sense, as we ve been out talking to vermonters across the political spectrum, that people feel like we have crossed a deadly threshold. and just one data point, which i found incredible helpful for me in understanding what happened in the last few weeks, for every one degree increase in temperature, and that s decrease celsius, we see that the clouds hold 7% more moisture. so this is, this is what we re gonna be dealing with as the global temperature climbs, it s that these rain systems, that used to be inconvenient, maybe
It
Congress
Feeling
Anyone
Dereliction
Climate-change
Corner
Dereliction-of-duty
People
Sense
Floods
Vermont