If you were following headlines when Pakistan was underwater last year, you’ve heard that there may be a connection between climate change and increased flooding. Now new studies of severe storms and catastrophic floods add more evidence to the theory that rising greenhouse gas levels actually do increase the odds of such extreme weather events—and perhaps make them stronger.

The recent research is among the earliest that claim to present observable scientific evidence for a human role in altering these natural phenomena, though climate models and observations have long suggested such a link exists in a warming world.

“What we see in these observations over a large area of the Northern Hemisphere is that the largest 24-hour precipitation event (single-day storm total)