Episode description

We all know that extreme weather events like hurricanes are getting worse due to climate change, but what scientists would really like to know is: By how much worse exactly? This year a team of researchers argued that hurricanes have become so much more extreme due to climate change that we need to add a new category 6 to the Saffir-Simpson scale, which measures the wind speed of hurricanes.

One of those scientists was Michael Wehner from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Using the latest and fastest computers to model how a warming world is reshaping extreme weather events, Wehner is leading a  new realm of climate modeling called "end-to-end attribution." This would allow us to not only understand how much worse disastrous weather is becoming but even quantify that difference in terms of damage and destruction.

Big Brains is sponsored by the Graham School for Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies.