It wasn't an accident

Port Vila, Vanuatu. Photo by Inga Mepham/AFP.

Waiting three days for the world media to tell me whether Cyclone Pam, which hit the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu on Friday, was or wasn't aggravated by global warming.

Duh. The media don't seem interested. It took Vanuatu's president Baldwin Lonsdale to bring it up, as I finally heard from BBC. And The Guardian:

He said the cyclone seasons that the nation had experienced were directly linked to climate change.

“We see the level of sea rise … The cyclone seasons, the warm, the rain, all this is affected ,” he said.

“This year we have more than in any year … Yes, climate change is contributing to this..."

Yes indeed. You can see, if you're curious, what the Pacific Climate Change Science Program predicted in 2012 for Vanuatu in the 21st century: continuing warming, continuing rise in sea level, fewer cyclones but greater intensity of precipitation events during the rainy season, which is now (Vanuatu is hit by some 23 per decade, none previously with the devastating effect of this one). The violence of this storm and severe flooding are unquestionably consistent with that, whether they are directly caused by it or not.