MAINE MONITOR • January 27, 2023
A virtual Maine Monitor panel event Thursday night summed up the effects of the Dec. 23 storm and what it illustrates about the effects of sea level rise on Maine’s coasts. Research tells us that human-caused carbon emissions are warming our atmosphere and oceans, causing sea levels to rise and storms to become more frequent and intense. While we can’t attribute any one weather event to climate change without more modeling to see whether it would have happened absent any other factors, we can say with confidence that these extreme events will happen more often. There’s a Scientific American piece about rethinking the words we use to talk about climate change. One of their suggestions: say “human-caused disasters,” not “natural disasters,” which some may equate with acts of God or the randomness of nature. In a world that’s warming because of human activity, many extreme weather events are increasingly human-made.