Temperatures hit an unseasonably warm 61˚F in Washington D.C. earlier this week. The Middle East is blanketed in record rainfall and rare heavy snowfall,endinga nearly decade-long drought. Australia目睹了其最热的一天在过去的一周中，挥舞着野火。中国正在经历一个寒冷的冬天，温度是最低的they’ve been in almost three decades. We’re only two weeks into 2013, and already we are getting a reminder of the extreme year we just emerged from.

2012: A Year of Extreme Weather

How extreme were last year’s weather and climatic events? In the continental United States, 2012 was thehottest year on recordand the second most extreme year,according to scientistsfrom the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). On top of that, the United States experienced 11extreme weather eventsthat each caused more than $1 billion in damages.

2012年并没有节省世界其他地区；它为非洲萨赫勒（Sahel）带来了严重的干旱，在25年内欧洲最严重的寒冷阵阵雨水，马尼拉和孟加拉国的洪水泛滥，以及其他毁灭性的事件。

We took stock of 2012’s extreme eventsin an interactive timeline. It is by no means comprehensive, but reminds us how climate change is affecting global communities and citizens’ lives, livelihoods, infrastructure, and ecosystems.

The Climate Change Connection

Meanwhile, the science linking extreme events to global warming continues to become more robust. The U.S. National Climate Assessmentreleased its draft reportlate last week, confirming that there is new and strong evidence that the increase in some extreme events is related to human activities. This comes on the heels of other noteworthy publications linking extreme events to climate change. The IPCCreleased a Special Reportin 2012 finding that climate change has already contributed to changes in extreme weather and climate events—such as heat waves, high temperatures, and heavy precipitation—in many regions over the past half century. In another report released last year, scientists from NOAA, the U.K.'s Met Office, and other institutions found that several extreme events are much more likely to happen now than decades ago due to human-induced climate change. For example,the report showedthat the conditions leading to the 2011 Texas drought are 20 times more likely to occur now than in the 1960s as a result of rising greenhouse gas emissions and associated climatic changes.

It is too early to tell what 2013 has in store for us. The first couple weeks suggest that we have not returned to stable weather. It is also too late to reverse the devastation of2012年的极限事件. However, if we want a fighting chance to avert similar – or worse – damage in the years to come,we must actto reverse our carbon-intensive trends and the associated warming that’s making weather and climate more extreme.