Via Climate Progress:Evidence for climate change is now undeniable – scientists

Ah, New Zealand, home of kiwis, the filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and blunt climate science reporting:

Evidence for climate change is now undeniable – scientists

Disastrous floods, heatwaves, storms and droughts are becoming more frequent because of climate change, and will continue to do so.
Scientists say the world can no longer ignore the link between climate change and extreme weather events, and they are urging countries to face up to the growing risks ahead.
New Zealander Kevin Trenberth [of] the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, said events of the past 18 months had been extraordinary. “It’s as clear a warning as we’re going to get about prospects for the future.”
Last year was the warmest on record and that warming was directly related to increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, he said.
Yes, New Zealand is the birthplace of Trenberth, who himself  has been one of the blunter climate scientists (see Trenberth: “It’s not the right question to ask if this storm or that storm is due to global warming, or is it natural variability. Nowadays, there’s always an element of both”).
But New Zealand is also home to many other blunt climate scientists:

Professor Lionel Carter, of Victoria University’s Antarctic Research Centre, said the effects were being seen on New Zealand’s doorstep, with the Tasman Sea getting warmer, and that warming shifting south.
Antarctica was losing mass, and the West Antarctic ice sheet in particular was causing concern as much of it was below sea level. A change to its mass could see the ice sheet lift off and raise the sea level by three to five metres.
This year was likely to be significant for extreme events such as floods, tornadoes and droughts, he said….
Professor Martin Manning, of Victoria’s Climate Change Research Institute, said humans were a primary driver for climate change, and the question now was how we dealt with the problem.
Insurance companies were beginning to recognise the trends in extreme weather and pay attention. “They’re getting extraordinarily concerned. They don’t really think what we’re doing at the moment is risk management.”
The world had “pushed way past” the point where local adaptations to climate change were going to be enough, as patterns of extreme events were too widespread.
But, then, climate scientists are becoming increasingly blunt everywhere you look — see Lonnie Thompson on why climatologists are speaking out: “Virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization.”
It’s just that some places, like New Zealand, seem more willing to report what  climate scientists themselves are saying without the false balance of the fringe deniers.  And so we get stories like these in the country:
Here’s more from Trenberth:
It brought with it devastating floods in Pakistan and a heatwave in Russia, which resulted in riots around the world because of increased food prices.Subsequent floods in Sri Lanka, Brazil and Queensland also brought deaths on a huge scale, and Dr Trenberth said scientists were now considering how such extreme events were linked.
Although some aspects of extreme weather were due to natural variation, global warming was now contributing too, with disastrous consequences. “There’s this 5-10 per cent contribution that may be thought of as the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
The world would experience less snow and more rain, more floods, more heatwaves and consequent wildfires, and more storms….
Dr Trenberth said increased temperatures had led to more water staying in the atmosphere. “What we are seeing throughout the world is when it rains, it pours.”
Over the oceans there was now 4 per cent more water vapour than in the 1970s, and sea surface temperatures had increased by about 0.55 degrees Celsius.
“The environment in which all storms form now is different to 30 or 40 years ago because of climate change.”
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