We’ve broken plenty of records this year: mildest winter, warmest spring, hottest day in 142 years, and now longest string of days above 95 degrees. Given that trend, you wouldn’t be crazy to ask whether or not this has anything to do with global warming.

And people have. Of course, as the Post reports today, climate experts are hesitant to say that the current temperatures are directly linked to climate change, though they will say that it’s part of a broader trend:

“Trying to wrap an analysis around it in real time is like trying to diagnose a car wreck as the cars are still spinning,” said Deke Arndt, chief of climate monitoring at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. “But we had record heat for the summer season on the Eastern Seaboard in 2010. We had not just record heat, but all-time record heat, in the summer season in 2011. And then you throw that on top of this [mild] winter and spring and the year to date so far, it’s very consistent with what we’d expect in a warming world.”

Yesterday the Capital Weather Gang took on last week’s derecho storm, wondering whether or not it was fueled by global warming. Their conclusion? There’s not enough evidence to say, but it’s certainly worth discussing.

While any final conclusions have yet to come, what these weather events have done is convince more and more Americans that climate change isn’t simply an academic theory, reports the AP:

Many Americans had previously seen climate change as a “nebulous concept” removed from them in time and geography, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco.

“Many people around the world are beginning to appreciate that climate change is under way, that it’s having consequences that are playing out in real time and, in the United States at least, we are seeing more and more examples of extreme weather and extreme climate-related events,” Lubchenco told a university forum in the Australian capital of Canberra.

Ultimately, we know this much: if global warming is to blame, D.C. may see a more pleasant spring, but it will also see unbearable summers and increased risks of flooding.

UPDATE, 3:25 p.m.: We missed this when it happened a few days ago, but NBC4 meteorologist Doug Kammerer left no doubt where he stood on this: “If we did not have global warming, we wouldn’t see this.”