Washington: Conservative groups with close links to the Trump administration have sought to ridicule the link between climate change and events such as tropical storm Harvey, amid warnings from scientists that storms are being exacerbated by warming temperatures. Harvey, which smashed into the Texas coast on Friday, rapidly developed into a Category 4 hurricane and has drenched parts of Houston with around 127cm of rain in less than a week, more than the city typically receives in a year.

So much rain fell that the National Weather Service had to add new colours to its maps.

Some scientists have pointed to the tropical storm as further evidence of the dangers of climate change, with Penn State University professor of meteorology Michael Mann stating that warming temperatures “worsened the impact” of the storm, heightening the risk to life and property.

Conservative groups, however, have mobilised to downplay or mock any association between the storm and climate change.

Myron Ebell, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency’s transition team when Donald Trump became president, said the last decade has been a “period of low hurricane activity” and pointed out that previous hurricanes occurred when emissions were lower.

“Instead of wasting colossal sums of money on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, much smaller amounts should be spent on improving the infrastructure that protects the Gulf and Atlantic costs,” said Ebell, who is director of environmental policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank that has received donations from fossil fuel companies such as Exxon Mobil.

Thomas Pyle, who led Trump’s transition team for the department of energy, said: “It is unfortunate, but not surprising, that the left is exploiting Hurricane Harvey to try and advance their political agenda, but it won’t work.

“When everything is a problem related to climate change, the solutions no longer become attainable. That is their fundamental problem.”

Pyle is president of the Institute of Energy Research, which was founded in Houston but is now based in Washington DC.

The non-profit organisation has consistently questioned the science of climate change and has close ties to the Koch family.

The Heartland Institute, a prominent conservative group that produced a blueprint of cuts to the EPA that has been mirrored by the Trump administration’s budget, quoted a procession of figures from the worlds of economics, mathematics and engineering to ridicule the climate change dimension of Harvey.

“In the bizarro world of the climate change cultists ... Harvey will be creatively spun to ‘prove’ there are dire effects linked to man-created climate change, a theory that is not proven by the available science,” said Bette Grande, a Heartland research fellow and a Republican who served in the North Dakota state legislature until 2014.

“Facts do not get in the way of climate change alarmism, and we will continue to fight for the truth in the months and years to come.”

Harvey was the most powerful storm to hit Texas in 50 years, but according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it is “premature” to conclude that there has already been an increase in Atlantic-born hurricanes due to temperatures that have risen globally, on average, by around 1C since the industrial revolution.

While the number of hurricanes may actually fall, scientists warn the remaining events will likely be stronger. A warmer atmosphere holds more evaporated water, which can fuel precipitation — Trenberth said as much as 30 per cent of Harvey’s rainfall could be attributed to global warming. For lower-lying areas, the storm surge created by hurricanes is worsened by a sea level that is rising, on average, by around 3.5mm a year across the globe.

The oil and gas industry has sought to see off the threat in the Gulf of Mexico with taller platforms — post-Katrina, offshore rigs are around 30 metres above sea level compared to 21 metres in the 1990s — but the Houston, the epicentre of the industry, is considered vulnerable due to its relaxed approach to planning that has seen housing built in flood-prone areas.

Barack Obama’s administration established a rule that sought to flood-proof new federal infrastructure projects by demanding they incorporate the latest climate change science. Last week, Trump announced he would scrap the rule, provoking a rebuke from Carlos Curbelo, a Florida Republican congressman who called the move “irresponsible”.

Curbelo, who has attempted to rally Republicans to address climate change, wouldn’t comment on the climate change link to Harvey.

Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, Texas’s Republican senators, didn’t respond to questions on the climate link, nor did Abbott, the state’s governor, or Dan Patrick, Texas’s lieutenant governor.

All four of the Texas politicians have expressed doubts over the broad scientific understanding that the world is warming and that human activity is the primary cause.

“It’s essential to talk about climate change in relation to events like Hurricane Harvey and it’s sad a lot of reports don’t mention it in any way,” said Trenberth. “You don’t want to overstate it but climate change is a contributor and is making storms more intense.

A relatively small increase in intensity can do a tremendous amount of damage. It’s enough for thresholds to be crossed and for things to start breaking.”