By all accounts, the last few years have been brutal for the climate — and for the humans and other living things within it. Around the globe, heat records have been shattered. Floods have soaked Pakistan, Libya and numerous other countries, in torrents that destroyed property and claimed lives. Powerful hurricanes have blasted the usual land targets, like the eastern coasts of India and the United States. And there have been strange, once-in-a-generation events, like a tropical storm that hit California.

The science of what is happening is clear. For more than 100 years, scientists have known that large quantities of greenhouse gases, released from the burning of fossil fuels, go up into the atmosphere and heat the planet. That heating leads to frequent and more extreme alterations in weather patterns. In that sense, climate change can be thought of as the Great Accelerator.

The heat wave that was always going to be hot is even hotter and hangs around much longer, forming a suffocating dome over large chunks of land. The periodic drought that was already going to happen ends up being drier and lasting longer, stripping moisture from the land and leaving cracks in its wake. The tropical storm that was always going to form in the ocean, but might have subsided before, more frequently turns into a powerful hurricane that pummels all it touches and leaves major flooding.

The pace of extreme weather events is dizzying, so much so that governments, scientists, and humanitarian groups find themselves responding to multiple crises at once. The extremes have heightened awareness of climate change, even among people who have denied it, or had the means to insulate themselves, or just wanted to look away. And the impact is coming into sharp focus.