<img class="styles__noscript__2rw2y" src="https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/ap_17250618438353.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0" srcset="https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/ap_17250618438353.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 400w, https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/ap_17250618438353.jpg?v=ap&w=980&h=551&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 800w" > En esta imagen satelital GOES-16 tomada el Jueves 7 de Septiembre de 2017, el ojo del Huracán Irma (centro) ubicado al norte de la Española, con el Huracán, izquierda, en el Golfo de México, y el Huracán José, derecha, en el Océano Atlántico. Irma, una tormenta de Categoría 5, dejó un rastro de devastación en el norte del Caribe, dejando al menos 10 muertos y miles de personas sin hogar antes de dar un golpe catastrófico en Florida.

Harvey was a devastating storm with unusal impacts: “As a meteorologist, I’m just stunned by the amount of rainfall that fell in this storm," said Jeff Masters, the director of meteorology at Weather Underground . "It’s certainly one of a kind.”

Irma, too, has severe and unique aspects. Aside from being one of the strongest ever recorded hurricanes over the Atlantic, it's the first major hurricane to make landfall in Florida in 12 years. This was also the first time ever that two simultaneous Atlantic hurricanes — Irma and Jose — have wind speeds of 150 mph.

And so, on the heels of Hurricane Harvey's cataclysmic flooding and with Hurricane Irma striking South Florida after devastating islands in the Caribbean, a question keeps cropping up in think pieces and op-eds, in tweets and memes: Is all this because of climate change?

(MORE: What to Know about Hurricane Irma )

The answer, according to climate scientists and meteorologists weather.com spoke to in the aftermath of Harvey, is an unsatisfying one: It's just too early to know.

According to Jonathan Erdman, senior meteorologist for weather.com, “It is very difficult to ascertain whether and to what extent Harvey and Irma would have happened without climate change. This takes examination of various factors by meteorologists and climate scientists.”

In the words of Dr. Suzana Camargo, a professor of Ocean and Climate Physics at Columbia University, “We can’t know for certain until we do attribution studies on this storm,” she said referring to Harvey. Attributions studies are research models which, in this case, will simulate the storm and then run different outcomes with and without greenhouse gases to see how, if at all, it impacted the storm system. “In the next few months, various modeling groups will certainly be doing attribution studies. So, we will probably have a more informed answer soon,” said Camargo. “It is not there yet.”

Some people haven't waited for these studies to be completed. In an in depth analysis, climate scientist Dr. Michael E. Mann wrote in the Guardian that “Climate change worsened the impact of Hurricane Harvey.” And he presented compelling evidence for his argument.

Even some of the scientists weather.com spoke to expanded on some circumstantial factors related to the power of these storms and climate change.

Dr. Timothy Hall, a senior research scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, explained that “there’s plenty of evidence that says a warmer climate will get more intense bouts of rainfall. ... Harvey’s a good example of that.” But, he also made it clear that until attribution studies are done, “We don’t know for sure."

“What was unusual (in the historical record),” Camargo wrote to weather.com via email, “was the amount of rainfall associated with the storm, which was very high, surpassing the previous record in the continental U.S." when Tropical Storm Amelia made landfall in Texas in 1978, bringing with it 48 inches of rain.

“I'm NOT saying that climate change ‘caused’ Harvey. What I'm saying is that there is a high probability that climate change contributed to make the impacts of event worse." But Carmargo, too, urged patience, saying the truth “will only be determined with certainty by doing attribution studies.”

But there is widespread agreement about one factor that has a major potential impact on coastal storms, and NASA's Hall, Erdman, Masters and Camargo were aligned when discussing it: sea level rise.

“That’s irrefutable,” Hall said of sea level rise. “It’s basic physics!”

Because of warming, water particles are expanding and taking up more space. That, coupled with melting land ice, has caused sea levels to rise 8 inches globally, and higher in some local areas, like around Texas and areas surrounding Caribbean islands. Because seas rise higher than they did previously, “the same level of intensity will cause a higher [storm] surge than it did previously,” Hall said.

During Harvey, Camargo noted, “the storm surge was approximately 6 feet near the landfall location Port Lavaca, as predicted by the National Hurricane Center. But exact amount of the storm surge is still to be determined by more detailed analysis, as there were not many real-time measurements near the location of landfall.”

It's worth noting that the reality of climate change, itself, is something verified and broadly accepted in the scientific community, regardless of what attribution studies find regarding Harvey and Irma.

“This could absolutely have been a climate change impacted storm,” said Weather Underground’s Masters of Harvey, specifically. “It’s a matter of language,” he said. “All storms will be impacted by climate change moving forward,” he said, citing the scientific realities currently at play.

“The best analogy,” NASA’s Hall explained explaining this nuanced back and forth regarding climate change and Harvey, “is that of loaded dice.” What this means, he explained, is that “if there weren’t climate change, an event like Harvey isn’t impossible meteorologically, it’s just less likely.” What climate change does, Hall explained, is make these type of weather events “more likely.”

Forty seven percent of Americans continue to deny human involvement in climate change, according to a Yale University study on climate change communication , albeit there is 97% of scientific consensus on this. Those who do not accept the consensus will be hard pressed to care about whether or not scientists agree, so perhaps this is a moot point.

To those who continue to disagree, disbelieve or avoid acknowledging the human involvement in climate change, Dr. Camargo has some gentle food for thought in light of Harvey: “Listen to the climate scientists that actually work with climate change, the evidence is there. Don't listen to what your friend's opinion on Facebook, or what the politician's think, or the scientists of other field, who only have ‘opinions’ are not working on the topic.”

“Climate change is real and will affect all of us.”