The Breakdown - Hurricane Harvey research

Since Hurricane Harvey made landfall and dumped 51 inches of rain onto the Houston area, researchers have been trying to use the storm to learn what we can expect in the future.

The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute believes a storm like Harvey would have only come around every 2,400 years, back before our earth's current warming period began.

Now, the institute believes we'll see a weather event like Harvey every 800 years, meaning three times more likely. Researches also think the rainfall was 15 percent heavier than it would have been pre-warming period. 

Similar conclusions were just released by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory which concludes the rainfall was perhaps up to 38 percent worse. These researchers acknowledge it's hard to know these numbers for sure, but they want us to notice the trend.

Whether we feel that humans are causing it or not, or have the ability to counteract it or not, data shows storms are becoming more frequent and much larger.

And with that knowledge, cities like Houston can start planning ahead to keep us safe.

Harris County Ed Emmett wants a third reservoir for the Houston area, among other things. Between all the concrete, new construction, lack of green space and lack of regulation, the current system for the Houston area really wasn't built for the kinds of floods we've witnessed in the past three years. And changing that takes time. 

Taking a look at New York City, five years after Superstorm Sandy ripped through, the city is still only in the design phase of plans for new sea walls and flood barriers.

Even with all these changes, hoping to keep us from a flooding repeat, there are a lot of people who don't even believe in climate change. 

One scientist pointed out that climate change can't actually cause anything.

It's simply a term to describe the change in climate patterns. Saying climate change caused Harvey isn't really accurate. with claims that it's more complicated than that. One study also pointed out what a big factor wind played in Harvey's wrath. The lack of prevailing winds is what allowed the storm to sit and hover over the Houston area for days. 

Regardless of which science you're siding with, hopefully we have all learned a little something from Hurricane Harvey.