A new UN report warns that these events are growing more frequent under climate change. Arguably the most important climate change report to date – authored by 200 scientists and drawing on more than 14,000 studies – has been described by one top Niwa climate scientist as "nothing but bad news". The sprawling Sixth Assessment Report, just released by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), found that human-induced climate change was now influencing weather and climate extremes across the globe. Droughts that once occurred once each decade were now twice as likely to happen, as a result of global climate change that's already occurred. Westport was last month swamped by a deluge driven by a moisture-packed atmospheric river stretching to the tropics - the type of event growing more frequent under climate change.

Source: New Zealand Herald August 09, 2021 07:52 UTC