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Drought, wildfires, hurricanes and heatwaves are becoming normal in America because of climate change, Congress was told on Wednesday in the first hearing on climate science in more than two years

In a predictably contentious hearing, the Senate’s environment and public works committee heard from a lead scientist for the United Nations’ climate body, the IPCC, on the growing evidence linking extreme weather and climate change.

“It is critical to understand that the link between climate change and the kinds of extremes that lead to disaster is clear,” Christopher Field, a lead author of the IPCC report and director of global ecology at the Carnegie Institute for Science, said in testimony.

“There is no doubt that climate has changed,” he went on. “There is also no doubt that a changing climate changes the risks of extremes, including extremes that can lead to disaster.”

He later told the committee that those climate-related disasters would have profound effects on industry and agriculture.

Field was the first IPCC scientist to appear before the committee since February 2009. It was a time when there was real optimism about prospects for action on climate change under the new Obama Administration.

By Wednesday, however, it was universally acknowledged there was no prospect of moving climate change legislation through Congress. There was also little chance the scientists’ presentations would persuade the most prominent Republican climate contrarian, Senator Jim Inhofe, who told the committee: “The global warming movement has completely collapsed.”

Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who chairs the committee, also noted she had deliberately avoid calling any administration officials or government scientists.

The Republican’s campaign against Obama’s green agenda, with their attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency and his clean energy loans, would make their presence a political distraction, she indicated.

The U.S. experienced 14 billion-dollar disasters in 2011, a record that surpasses the previous maximum of nine,” he said. “The 2011 disasters included a blizzard, tornadoes, floods, severe weather, a hurricane, a tropical storm, drought and heatwaves, and wildfires. In 2012, we have already experienced horrifying wildfires, a powerful windstorm that hit Washington D.C., heat waves in much of the country, and a massive drought.”

Check out http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/congress-climate-change/