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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

March Floods Sweep KY onto “Top 10” List for Extreme Weather

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Monday, December 8, 2008   

Frankfort, KY – The Kentucky floods in March have made the list of "Top 10 Extreme Weather Events for 2008." Climate scientists and meteorologists around the country compiled the report. They also analyzed extreme weather to find possible links to climate change. The Kentucky flooding made that category.

Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, says warmer temperatures since 1979 have boosted ocean evaporation rates by at least four percent. That evaporated water eventually turns into rain, he adds.

"There's more rain, and more risk of flooding than there was 30 years ago, simply because there's more water vapor in the atmosphere."

Hurricane Ike, the nearly 1,500 tornadoes around the country, Midwest flooding and the California wildfires were also listed in the "top 10."

Extreme weather appears isolated when it happens, but when reviewed at the end of the year, Trenberth says the links to climate change should not be ignored, because of the danger to life, property and the environment.

"Here are 10 things that we ought to be paying attention to, and we have good reason to believe that they're being affected by global warming."

Climate change and links to weather aren't solid in every case. For example, Trenberth explains that tornadoes depend on many factors, and most have nothing to do with the climate change, although more moisture in the air can play a role.

The list includes Hurricane Ike, tornadoes, Midwest flooding in spring and summer, Southeast drought, California wildfires, Western snow, a Colorado heat wave and Arctic Sea ice loss.


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