Climate scientist discusses this summer’s extreme weather and long-term trends

William Brangham:

It’s all part of a larger pattern of meteorological extremes, disasters that climate scientists say are becoming more frequent and more intense as the Earth continues to warm.

Just days ago, Greece saw the end of weeks of deadly wildfires, and Western Europe is in the midst of an unusual September heat wave. The U.N.’s weather agency says this is the hottest summer ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere. It reported that August was 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than pre-industrial averages.

So let’s delve a little deeper into this extreme weather and its calamitous impacts. For that, we are joined again by climate scientist Gavin Schmidt. He’s the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Gavin Schmidt, very nice to have you back on the “NewsHour.”

In addition to these extreme weather events we’re seeing, we’re also getting a better understanding of how a warming world is harming human health. There was a recent analysis by The Washington Post and CarbonPlan that indicated that, in just seven years, half-a-billion people globally will be exposed to extreme heat for at least one month a year, even if they can get out of the sun.

A study in “Lancet” found that the number of heat-related deaths of elderly people rose by 68 percent in recent years. I mean, it seems that we are making life on Earth increasingly hazardous in ways that we are not at all prepared for.

Do you think that that’s overstating it?