As a former student of meteorology, I look at the satellite images and data from Hurricane Harvey with fascination. From miles above, it is a stunning cyclonic structure – a perfect funnel formed from massive pressure walls driven by atmospheric warming. The location only enhances the completeness of this event – bridging the intersection of warm, consistent Caribbean waters with the varied and dry lands ready to receive the moisture transfer.

Of course, what I am describing is also the worst-case scenario of global warming. As the oceans warm, that meteorological engine of atmospheric disturbance also increases in potency. Up to fifty inches of rainfall — a statistic with no real meaning to us until one experiences it — is a devastating statistic. The human suffering will be immense and last for years as the region rebuilds. Yet this event will not the be last catastrophic weather disaster we will endure in the near future.

The irony of Harvey’s timing is the rhetoric from the Republicans and our withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords. Whether it be Hurricane Harvey, the regular flooding of Miami Beach or the scorching heat records in the south, most of the damage from global warming is now concentrated in states that voted for Trump and continue to support him.

At some point, however, when people’s lives are at risk, economic livelihoods are threatened, and quality of living is further eroded, people will start to pay attention to fact and dismiss fiction. At least that is the hope.

For me, the most meaningful aspect of this weather event is yet to come: how will people respond, who starts to recognize the connection with global warming, where will they assign blame? I hope, perhaps naïvely, that some will start to worry less about a wall of concrete along the Mexican border and will focus more the wall of water just dropped on their state.