Brian Lair on WNYC.

So you could be forgiven if you feel like our weather in the New York area recently has been sort of biblical, right?

We were just in the extreme heat. There were the

Canadian wildfires causing air pollution alerts. Today it's predicted we'll have the floods.

The frequency of extreme weather events like these correlates with the 10 hottest years on record

being the last 10 years, even as the EPA announced this week that it

wants to stop regulating greenhouse gases at all. We'll get a take now on the interconnectedness

between the fires up there, the air quality index here, and the pattern of heat and drenching rains

from Radley Horton, Professor of Climate at Columbia

University's Climate School. Among other things from his biopage, Professor Horton was a

convening lead author for the federal government's third national climate assessment published

in 2014, and very relevant to our local area. He is currently the principal investigator for the National

Oceatic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Adaptation Partnerships funded Consortium for

Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast. Professor Horton, thanks for some time today. Welcome back to

WNYC. Hi, Brian. Nice to talk to you again. I crunch some numbers this morning on a century of

temperature change in Central Park. And I think listeners will find it really interesting. I know you

know all this. But before we even get to that, I think our listeners might be interested in whether

that bio of yours that I just read out still applies. With all the cuts to so much that's climate and weather related, does NOAA, the National

Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, still have a consortium for climate risk in the urban

northeast?

Yeah, great question.

We still do as of today, but as you know, not all scientists, not all people at this interface between our government-funded research, our government science, and our academic science, a lot have been very seriously affected. And also, of course, the the public at large affected as well by these

...