How could a body of water as big as the Mediterranean just…disappear? It would take decades and more than 1,000 research studies to even start to figure out the cause — or causes — of one of the greatest vanishing acts in Earth’s history.

Special thanks to everyone at the MEDSALT project, including Aaron Micallef, Daniel Garcia-Castellanos, Angelo Camerlenghi, and Luca Mariani, for allowing us to use their incredible graphics and videos in this episode. Check out their work here: https://medsalt.eu/ and the full version of their incredible recreation of the MSC and the Zanclean Flood here: https://youtu.be/B5uW7Qg6rXM

This episode was written by Gabi Serrato Marks!

And thanks as always to Ceri Thomas (https://alphynix.tumblr.com/), Julio Lacerda (https://twitter.com/JulioTheArtist) and Franz Anthony (http://franzanth.com/) for their wonderful paleoart used in this episode.

Produced in collaboration with PBS Digital Studios: http://youtube.com/pbsdigitalstudios

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References: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N9rMuWEPYTgzDhzb2FmwCsdhuBUktaZAeGOnKDJwbmk/edit?usp=sharing

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Fluctuations in weather happen all the time. But sometimes, those fluctuations can get extreme, making disasters like hurricanes and heatwaves more intense. What role does climate change play in extreme weather?

ABOVE THE NOISE is a show that cuts through the hype and investigates the research behind controversial and trending topics in the news. Hosted by Myles Bess and Shirin Ghaffary.

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Extreme weather is on the rise. A recent study found that worldwide, there were almost two and half times more extreme weather events in the first decade of this century than in the 1980s. To tease out the relationship between climate change and extreme weather, scientists use something called attribution science. This technique breaks down how much climate change influenced the event versus normal variations in weather. To do this successfully, researchers use climate models. They’re basically computer programs that simulate how the Earth’s climate will change over time. Essentially, 2 models are created. Model 1 — the world without humans burning fossil fuels. And model 2, a world like ours now, where we do burn fossil fuels.

In general, climate change models can’t tell us if climate change is the cause of any particular extreme weather event, but they do indicate that climate change is making those events more severe. Climate change is causing higher sea levels and warmer waters, and that’s leading to stronger hurricanes and heavier rainfall. Going forward, the overwhelming scientific consensus is that if climate change continues at its current rate, extreme weather will only get more extreme.

What is extreme weather?
Extreme weather is when a weather event is significantly different from the average or usual weather pattern.

What is climate change?
A change in global or regional climate patterns, in particular a change apparent from the mid to late 20th century onwards and attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels.

What is climate attribution science?
The effort to scientifically demonstrate which mechanisms are responsible for observed changes in the Earth’s climate.

SOURCES:
Natural Disasters, Armed Conflict, and Public Health
http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMra1109877

Liability for Climate Change
http://www.climateprediction.net/wp-content/publications/nature_allen_270203.pdf

Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002/pdf

How We Use Climate Models
https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/primer/climate-models

National Climate Change Assessment Report
http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/

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Watch my other climate science videos: http://bit.ly/climatevids
Get yourself an awesome I DID A SCIENCE shirt! http://dftba.com/besmart
↓ More info and sources below ↓

References/Learn more:

July 2016 is hottest on record: http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2479/nasa-analysis-finds-july-2016-is-warmest-on-record/

NOAA’s State of the Climate July 2016 http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201607

Bloomberg’s climate change data viz project: http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/

Solar activity and temperature show opposite trend: https://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming-intermediate.htm

Milankovitch cycles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles (I left out eccentricity because it operates on scales so long that it doesn’t affect short term climate change)

Connecting climate models with actual temperature changes http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00154.1

NASA Goddard’s Gavin Schmidt explains the history of the instrumental temperature record https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkT7IyUSjq0

Last time CO2 was this high, humans didn’t exist http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-last-time-co2-was-this-high-humans-didnt-exist-15938

Shifting baselines: http://www.shiftingbaselines.org/op_ed/

Thomas Jefferson’s weather observations: https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/weather-observations

Ben Franklin as Meteorologist: http://www.jstor.org/stable/983821

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