Well, whaddya know.

WASHINGTON — Evidence is strong that the increasing frequency of extreme rain, heat, drought and tropical storms is caused by global climate change, according to a report released Thursday by a panel of government scientists.

You don’t say.

And human activity probably is the reason, according to the report from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.

This would be the government itself saying this, by the way.

There is a 90% chance that catastrophic rain events, such as the one that led to the recent devastating floods in the Midwest, will increase in frequency as global-warming gases, build in the atmosphere, said Tom Karl, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Data Center.

So this is how this is all going to play out.

Even as we see an increase in severe weather events - which we’ve already seen this spring, with the rash of tornadoes in the Midwest, now the flooding in Iowa in elsewhere, 500-year floods that even the Sioux hadn’t seen - we will continue to hear from certain quarters that we’re really not seeing an increase in severe weather. Or that, even if we are, we can’t really be sure what or whom to attribute it to. And that also, in any event, the economic cost of “doing something” isn’t warranted, because that “something” is destined to have little effect, particularly if China and India and other developing nations fail to take steps as well.

And to an extent, some of that might be true. So in the end, what we’ll do is: Nothing.

Except maybe watch the Weather Channel more often, as there will be more and more extreme weather events to watch.