美国的气候变化问题恶化的问题与政治一样两极分化。该国的某些地区本月一直在燃烧，而其他地区则在极端天气灾难中处于水下。
已经烧烤的西部越来越干燥，遭受了致命的野火，而潮湿的东方越来越多地在大型狂热事件中湿透，有些飓风与之相关，而另一些则没有。几位科学家告诉美联社，气候变化正在放大这两个极端，但这可能不是唯一的因素。
“The story in the West is really going to be … these hot dry summers getting worse and the fire compounded by decreasing precipitation,’’ said Columbia University climate scientist Richard Seager. “But in the eastern part more of the climate change impact story is going to be more intense precipitation. We see it in Sally.”
北卡罗来纳州的气候学家凯西·戴洛（Kathie Dello）是俄勒冈州副州长气候学家凯西·戴洛（Kathie Dello），本周正在与俄勒冈州大火的朋友交谈，而她被挤在帐篷下，躲过北卡罗莱纳州山上的4英寸（10厘米）的雨水。
“The things I worry about are completely different now,” Dello said. “We know the West has had fires and droughts. It’s hot and dry. We know the East has had hurricanes and it’s typically more wet. But we’re amping up both of those.”
In the federal government’s 2017 National Climate Assessment, scientists wrote a special章节由于燃烧煤炭，石油和天然气而导致的全球变暖引起的惊喜警告。提到的最早的是“复合极端事件”。
“We certainly are getting extremes at the same time with climate change,” said University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles, one of the main authors.
自1980年以来，国家海洋和大气管理局一直追踪数十亿美元的灾难，调整通货膨胀，并随之而来four happeningin August including the western wildfires. NOAA applied meteorologist Adam Smith said that this year, with at least 14 already, has a high likelihood of being a record.
在过去30年中，在220亿美元的干旱中，有15个袭击了落基山脉以西的州，而在东部，在280亿美元的非恋爱洪水事件中，有23个。
For more than a century scientists have looked at a divide — at the 100th meridian — that splits the country with dry and brown conditions to the west and wet and green ones to the east.
Seager发现湿干线has moved自1980年以来，从堪萨斯州西部到堪萨斯州东部约140英里（225公里）。
And it’s getting more extreme.
根据U.S. Drought Monitor。Scientists say the West is in about the 20th year of what they call a“megadrought,”the only one since Europeans came to North America.
微薄的夏季降雨减少了26％在过去的30年中落基山脉以西。加利福尼亚贫血的夏季降雨已下降41％in the past 30 years。根据NOAA记录，在过去三年中，加利福尼亚州的降雨中没有超过三分之一英寸（0.8厘米）的降雨。
加利福尼亚州还遭受了记录中最糟糕的火灾年，超过5,300 square miles（13,760平方公里）被烧毁。这不仅仅是将面积加倍在2018年创下的以前的纪录中。人们在本月也在俄勒冈州和华盛顿逃离了前所未有的致命大火。
哥伦比亚大学科学家A. Park Williams说：“气候变化是美国西部野火增长的主要因素。”
“自1970年代初以来，加利福尼亚州的年度野火范围增加了五倍，在2017年和2018年被极大且破坏性的野火刺破，”2019 studyheaded by Williams said, attributing it mostly to “drying of fuels promoted by human‐induced warming.”
在西方的野火,more than a foot rain fell on Alabama and Florida as Hurricane Sally parked on the Gulf Coast,dropping as muchas 30 inches (76 centimeters) of rain at Orange Beach, Alabama. Studies sayhurricanes are slowingdown, allowing them to deposit more rain.
萨利（Sally）袭击的前一周，一场非热带风暴在短短几个小时内就在华盛顿特区的郊区倾倒了半英尺。在东部，倾盆大雨变得越来越普遍，夏天获得了16％wetter in the last 30 years。
2016年8月，一场非热带风暴倾倒31英寸(nearly 79 centimeters) of rain in parts of Louisiana, killing dozens of people and causing nearly $11 billion in damage. Louisiana and Texas had up to20 inches（51厘米）在2016年3月。2016年6月，torrential rain在西弗吉尼亚州造成了10亿美元的洪水破坏。
在1950年代，落基山脉以东的地区平均每年有87个倾盆大雨。根据NOAA研究气象学家肯·昆克尔（Ken Kunkel）的数据，在2010年代，每年飙升至149。
It’s simple physics. With each degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) that the air warms, it holds 7% more moisture that can come down as rain. The East has warmed that much since 1985, according to NOAA.
尽管气候变化是一个因素，但西格（Seager）和威廉姆斯（Williams）表示，发生的事情比气候模型预测更为极端，并且还必须有其他自然天气现象。
Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann said that La Nina — a temporary natural cooling of parts of the equatorial Pacific that changes weather worldwide — is partly responsible for some of the drought and hurricane issues this summer. But that’s on top of climate change, so together they make for “dual disasters playing out in the U.S.,” Mann said.
至于您可以去哪里逃避气候灾难的地方，Dello说：“我不知道您可以在哪里去胜过气候变化。”
“I’m thinking Vermont,” she said, then added Vermont had bad floods from 2011’s Hurricane Irene.
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Read stories on climate issues by The Associated Press athttps://apnews.com/hub/climate。
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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at@borenbears。
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美联社健康与科学系获得了霍华德·休斯医学院科学教育部的支持。AP对所有内容都是全部负责的。
