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In good and bad ways, climate always has an effect on human lives.
But sometimes people get caught up in severe weather. Such extremes can change whole communities forever – or even destroy them.
▲ Mount Pinatubo is a volcano in the Philippines. In 1991, it spewed tons of ash high into the stratosphere. The ash spread out and made a hazy ring around the equator. The haze blocked enough sunlight to cool down global temperatures by about 1°F. That winter, blizzards and cold weather hit many parts of the world. Scientists believe the Earth felt Pinatubo’s cooling effects for at least two years.
▲ “Incessant [never-ending] rain often confined us for days to the house.” That’s what 18-year-old Mary Shelley had to say about the strangely wet summer of 1816. Stuck indoors, Mary and her friends decided to spend their vacation writing and sharing ghost stories. Two years later, Mary published her story as Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus.
▲ What was “the Great American Desert”? That name was once used to describe the prairies of Nebraska and Kansas. However, in the 1870s, a period of wet weather turned the dry prairie into green farmland. Millions thought the climate had changed forever, and they hurried to claim land there. Some even said that settlers had changed the climate by farming the land. They said, “Rain follows the plow.” But when the wet spell ended in the mid-1880s, the land dried up again. Many settlers left the area.
Floods in Peru? Drought in Indonesia? These extreme weather conditions could have a common cause. They are linked to how the atmosphere is affected by a patch of warm ocean water called El Niño. In an El Niño year, trade winds weaken. Also, ocean temperature patterns change. In the western Pacific, the water gets cooler than normal. In the eastern Pacific, the water gets warmer. The wet weather moves eastward, too. Warm water heats the air, which helps make storm conditions. So countries like Peru are hotter and wetter than usual, while countries like Indonesia are drier and cooler.
Before Flood
The black lines are the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.
After Flood
The red area shows the floodwaters.
▲ The great Mississippi flood of 1993 is known to scientists as a “hundred-year flood.” They use this term because a flood that big has a 1 percent chance of happening each year. So on average, you might expect one such flood about every hundred years. Seventy thousand people lost their homes in this flood, so they had big decisions to make afterward. Some rebuilt their homes in the floodplains, but others moved to higher ground. What would you have done?
