Is climate change why Harvey has brought quite so much rain to Texas?
Geneva — The volume of rainfall from Tropical Storm Harvey is probably linked to climate change associated with global warming that increases the amount of moisture in the atmosphere, the UN weather agency said on Tuesday. The slow-moving storm has brought catastrophic flooding to Texas, killed at least nine people, led to mass evacuations and paralysed Houston, the fourth most-populous US city. "Climate change means that when we do have an event like Harvey, the rainfall amounts are likely to be higher than they would have been otherwise," Clare Nullis, spokesperson for the World Meteorological Organisation, told a UN briefing in Geneva. "Climate change does very likely increase the associated rainfall," she said, adding that in some locations Harvey’s rainfall may approach 1.2m, and that the US National Weather Service had to introduce a new colour on its graphs to deal with the volume of rain. "Climate change doesn’t cause tropical cyclones. They’ve always been there. The relatio...
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