2024 has delivered a smorgasbord of destructive and disruptive extreme weather events. Spring brought record rains to parts of the eastern US along while summer has been brutally hot and dry in many western states and Europe. A supercharged hurricane season threatened the Atlantic seaboard. Can we pinpoint climate change? What does a rapidly warming, melting Arctic have to do with it?

Jennifer Francis is a Senior Scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center. She was previously Research Professor in the Dept. of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University, where she studied how rapid Arctic change is affecting areas beyond the Arctic, especially extreme weather in the Northern Hemisphere.