The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the major global study on global warming, reached a clear conclusion on the subject. There is no evidence that extreme weather events, or climate variability, has increased, in a global sense through the 20th century. Current weather events, in other words, cannot be linked to the global warming theory. Nor can future weather events. The intergovernmental panel said there is no theoretical support for the theory that global warming could cause bad weather.
Conclusions regarding extreme storm events are obviously even more uncertain.
Environment Canada officials, however, continue to pump out the opposite theory. In yesterday's Globe, Gordon McBean, one of the department's assistant deputy ministers, virtually contradicted the IPCC statement. At least that much is true, but it doesn't let Mr. McBean off the hook. Claims that global warming will cause devastation and climate catastrophes are under constant revision and assessment. Even if warming occurs at a rate some of the theorists claim it will, the impact on the weather is unknown.