The holiday of the “bomb cyclone” — a massive winter storm that has so far affected over 200 million Americans.

The holiday of the “bomb cyclone” — a massive winter storm that has so far affected over 200 million Americans.

It disrupted travel with at least 3,000 canceled flights, caused widespread power outages and plunged much of the country into dangerously cold conditions.

Inevitably, there will be politicians who use events like winter storms to argue that global warming is not happening.

In the worldview of such politicians, a severe winter storm proves conclusively that humans do not cause planetary warming.

This worldview is wrong. Dangerously wrong. Falsely equating a ball of frozen water to “disproof” of global warming is a snowball of ignorance

A snowball that can grow inexorably, accreting conspiracy theories, influencing millions.

A snowball that can grow inexorably, accreting conspiracy theories, influencing millions.

Such scientific ignorance is every bit as harmful to U.S. citizens as the deep-freeze conditions of the December 2022 bomb cyclone.

It’s just as dangerous to claim perfect understanding — to assert that climate scientists fully understand the links between global warming and the frequency and intensity of bomb cyclones.