Chris Mooney of The Intersection once asked whether the recent Amazon drought could be definitively linked to global warming in response to the New York Times‘ suggestion that it was indeed a direct result.  Yet another reason why the NYT should shut the hell up, but that’s another story.

To address Chris’ question, rasmus over at RealClimate took the question and provided a rather thorough response on why it scientifically cannot be linked to global warming.  Part of that explanation is the common sense I have been preaching on this topic since the GW-bandwagon got its start: no single event, no matter how large or catastrophic, no matter how out of the ordinary it might be, can be linked to global warming because of the climate’s very large and complex — and chaotic — system of variables and interactions.  I strongly suggest you go read rasmus’ post as it’s quite thorough and an excellent example of the practice of common sense in climatology.