Angry Weather : Heat Waves, Floods, Storms, and the New Science of Climate Change

From leading climate scientist Dr. Friederike Otto, this gripping book reveals the revolutionary science that definitively links extreme weather events—including deadly heat waves, forest fires, floods, and hurricanes—to climate change.

“Meet the forensic scientists of climate change; if you like CSI, you’ll be equally enthralled with the skill and speed these folks exhibit. But the stakes are infinitely higher!” —Bill McKibben, author of Falter and The End of Nature

Tied with Hurricane Katrina as the costliest cyclone on record, Hurricane Harvey caused catastrophic flooding and over a hundred deaths in 2017. Angry Weather tells the compelling, day-by-day story of the World Weather Attribution unit—a team of scientists that studies extreme weather events while they’re happening—and their race to track the connection between the hurricane and climate change. As the hurricane unfolds, Otto reveals how attribution science works in real time, and determines that Harvey’s terrifying floods were three times more likely to occur due to human-induced climate change.

At the forefront of cutting-edge climate science, Friederike Otto uncovers how the new ability to determine climate change’s role in extreme weather events can dramatically transform how we view the climate crisis: from how it will affect those of us who are most vulnerable, to the corporations and governments that may find themselves held accountable in the courts. The research laid out in Angry Weather will have profound impacts, both today and for the future of humankind.

Published in Partnership with the David Suzuki Institute.

Friederike (Fredi) Otto is a physicist, philosopher, climate researcher, senior lecturer at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London. Otto is also the co-founder and lead on the international project World Weather Attribution, which assesses the human influence on extreme weather and has been profiled in the New York Times, Nature, and other outlets. Otto was named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People of 2021 and and as one of the top 10 people who helped shape science in 2021 by the journal Nature.