Texas tragedy foretells future for warming climate, scientists say

While the story of the Texas flooding tragedy and what went wrong is still unspooling, scientists said it provides another reminder that climate change can make extreme rainfall events even worse. What they're saying: "[T]his kind of record-shattering rain (caused by slow-moving torrential thunderstorms) event is *precisely* that which is increasing the fastest in warming climate," UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said in a longer social media thread.Threat level: Andrew Dessler, director of the Texas Center for Extreme Weather at Texas A&M, says the floods are "exactly what the future is going to hold." Dessler added that Kerr County was unprepared and local governments should be ready for "more, bigger, extreme events."And UC-Davis earth and planetary sciences professor Nicholas Pinter said that in general, climate change "can and is shifting those probabilities — sometimes bringing us floods that are more severe and more frequent than in the past."Friction point: The fatal flooding is prompting questions about whether vacant positions at the National Weather Service "made it harder for the forecasting agency to coordinate with local emergency managers as floodwaters rose," the NYT reports.What we're watching: Whether the tragedy will alter Trump administration efforts to downsize NOAA — and Congress' willingness to go along. CNN reports the proposed cuts would hinder R&D into new forecasting technologies — including flash flood forecasting."The NOAA research cuts would come just as human-caused climate change is resulting in more frequent and intense downpours like the ones that led to this tragedy in Texas," it reports.

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