By John Ostapkovich

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Fall begins today, sounding the final note on a summer that had us by the throat for a while.

This wasn’t the hottest summer of all despite daily records in many spots and in large stretches of the country the heat and drought played off one another.

National Geographic’s September cover story looks at What’s Up with the Weather and concludes human-influenced warming is part of it.

Bob Deans of the Natural Resources Defense Council is also in that camp.

“We’re looking at the correlation between carbon pollution in our atmosphere, and those temperature increase. We’re seeing that carbon pollution increases unless we take steps to abate that,” says Deans.

His leading suggestions are renewable energy and more efficient cars and appliances.

Accuweather says extremes that eased in August will not reappear in fall although they see a lot of snow here in mid-to-late winter.