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Yes, climate change made Harvey and Irma worse
(CNN)The right time to talk climate change is now.
It might seem premature when people in the Caribbean, Florida and Texas are still mucking out their flooded homes.
And no, changes in our planet's atmosphere did not cause Hurricanes Harvey or Irma. But the consensus among scientists is that the effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels and warmer oceans, made those storms far more destructive than they would have been in previous decades.
"The short version is, climate change makes these very bad storms worse," said Sean Sublette, a meteorologist with Climate Central, a nonprofit group that studies climate change. "It's not the proximate cause of the storm, but it makes these bad storms worse. And in the case of a really bad storm, climate change can make it totally disastrous or catastrophic."
The data on how our warming planet specifically impacted Harvey and Irma won't be known for quite some time. It can take months and even years to collect and analyze that information.
