Don't Be Fooled: Weather Is Not Climate

Weather is short-term and impossible to predict far in advance.

Climate is the average weather over a long period of time.

A cold day or month or even a year doesn't mean the climate is not heating up. However, a changing climate can make certain extreme events more likely. Climate change will make heavy rainfall even heavier, and heatwaves hotter and more frequent.

Hurricanes, heatwaves, floods, and droughts have happened before and will happen again.

The question is not if it would have happened without climate change. Instead, we should be asking what we're doing to the climate.

Climate change is seldom the only factor contributing to the cost of natural disasters. Climate change will result in more wildfires, but how we manage land will contribute to the severity.

Warming sea surface temperature may cause stronger hurricanes, but where we live and build will determine the damage they cause.