Vermont Floods Show Limits of America’s Efforts to Adapt to Climate Change

This week’s flooding in Vermont, in which heavy rainfall caused destruction far from rivers or coastlines, is evidence of an especially dangerous climate threat: Catastrophic flooding can increasingly happen anywhere, with almost no warning.

And the United States, experts warn, is nowhere close to ready for that threat.

The idea that anywhere it can rain, it can flood, is not new. But rising temperatures make the problem worse: They allow the air to hold more moisture, leading to more intense and sudden rainfall, seemingly out of nowhere. And the implications of that shift are enormous.“It’s getting harder and harder to adapt […]

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