Climate change: Weather on steroids

Hotter temps, wilder weather As the planet heats up, our climate is changing, becoming less predictable and more extreme—not just hotter, but wilder. Rising global temperatures set off a cascade of atmospheric changes that can produce noticeable shifts in typical weather patterns.

Massive storms Along with bigger storms in coastal areas, climate change increases sea levels, magnifying the impacts of storms by worsening storm surges. Last year, massive Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc across the Atlantic seaboard, killing at least 190 people, many lost in the "catastrophic" storm surge, NOAA reported.

Heavier snowfall In late January 2011, one of the worst snowstorms on record struck several Northern U.S. cities. It was the "snowiest January on record" for New York City, breaking the 1925 record. In 2009-2010, a series of three winter storms socked the mid-Atlantic—a record breaking 79.9 inches of snow fell in Baltimore within a few weeks.

Scorching heat 2012 was the warmest year on record in the contiguous United States and, more importantly, one of the 10 warmest years globally—with all of those occurring in the past 15 years.

Droughts for the record books A drought that affected more than half the country in 2012 has continued to persist in 2013. Meanwhile, the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) and NASA reported that wildfires in 2012 were the "the third highest total in a record that dates back to 1960," burning more than 9.1 million acres.