research teams led by scientists from NOAA and a number of countries investigated seven different 2011 extreme weather and climate events. In six of the seven, there was sufficient evidence to conclude that climate change caused by human activities played a factor in the events â $ affecting their severity, likelihood or frequency. News: Extreme weather -- get ready to see more of it Among those events exacerbated by climate change were heat waves in Texas and Oklahoma, the East African drought and extreme temperatures in Europe and England. On the other hand, the study found no evidence that the devastating floods in Thailand last year were connected to climate change. Another new peer-reviewed article, the 2011 State of the Climate report compiled by nearly 400 scientists from 48 countries, documents some of the longer-term trends that are underlying some of these changes. It found that: -- Carbon dioxide and other major greenhouse gases continue to climb, with the 2011 yearly global average the highest yet; -- Excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is making oceans more acidic; -- The Arctic is warming about twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and its sea ice is thinning dramatically; -- And the globally averaged heat stored in the upper ocean was the highest since records began in 1993. Such striking trends have strong implications for climate, weather and