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… is from page 97 of former Caltech physics professor and provost – and former Energy Department undersecretary during the Obama administration – Steven Koonin’s excellent 2021 book, Unsettled? What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters [2] (original emphasis):
Today, TV weather presenters have morphed into climate and weather presenters, blaming a “broken climate” for many of the severe weather events that they cover. Indeed, it has become de rigueur for the media, politicians, and even some scientists to implicate human influences as the cause of heat waves, droughts, floods, storms, and whatever else the public fears. It’s a pretty easy sell: the on-the-scene reporting is powerful – and often moving – and our poor memories of past events can make “unprecedented” quite convincing.
But the science tells a different story. Observations extending back over a century indicate that most types of extreme weather events don’t show any significant change – and some such events have actually become less common or severe – even as human influences on the climate grow.