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Aug 2021
11m 17s

How to make sense of extreme weather

TED
About this episode

From raging wildfires in Australia to sub-zero winter storms in Texas, we’re seeing a rise in extreme weather across the globe. But how can we tell what’s caused by climate change, and what’s just bad weather? To answer this question, Dan breaks down the differences between weather and climate—what they are, how we predict them, and what those predictions can tell us. And then we visit a country that should LITERALLY be underwater to see how they’ve used human ingenuity to stay afloat, and what we can learn from them to do the same. Find the text transcript for this episode at go.ted.com/TC3

TED Climate is produced and edited by Sheena Ozaki, mixed by Sam Bair, and hosted by Dan Kwartler. This episode adapted two lessons originally produced in animated form by the TED-Ed team. "Is the weather actually becoming more extreme?" was written by Ramalingam Saravanan with support from Emma Bryce. "Why isn’t the Netherlands underwater?" was written by Stefan Al with support from Alex Gendler. Both lessons had editorial support from Dan Kwartler. Our fact-checker was Eden Girma. And special thanks to Alex Rosenthal, Gerta Xhelo, Michelle Quint, Banban Cheng, and Anna Phelan.

For a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch.


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