Alexa Kay

Science

1/31/13

Hurricane Sandy devastated our country. Sandy killed 132 Americans.Sandy damaged and destroyed tens of thousands of homes,left millions of homes without power and also impacted one of our largest metropolitan areas in the United States.

Our country was not well prepared enough to deal with the devastation that Sandy brought to us.Now New Jersey has approved a 9.7 billion dollar storm relief fund. This is only a down payment for the 60.4 billion dollar federal aid package that Obama’s administration that is set up to help the region recover. The estimated costs for the storm damage is closer to 82 billion dollars. Americans need to be more prepared and we need to stop acting like major disasters are so rare because there is a lot more we can do to prevent so much damage.

The year 2012 was declared the tenth warmest year we have had on record since recording started in 1880. Also last year was the warmest since 1895. Americans crops were beginning to die out because of the heat which caused food prices to increase. Also the increase in heat scorched forests and therefore causing major wildfires and destroying more homes in the process.As you can see Global Warming is clearly affecting more than one thing. Its causing spiked prices in food,destroying forests and many more devastation are occurring.

In an article written in the New York Times it states that Global warming could have not only affected Hurricane Sandy a great deal but it could also help us to predict the future storms. Nobody can say for certain if global warming was the cause for Hurricane Sand.Scientists  can say that in the Western Atlantic Ocean the surface temperature was remarkably higher that specific day and even in some places an entire five degrees warmer which is unheard of that time of year. Human contribution to Global Warming has been raising each year since the 1970’s

Its obvious that Global Warming played a major roll in contributing to Hurricane Sandy. Overall though Global warming is a major issue that’s affecting our entire world. Hurricane Sandy was a huge devastation to our world and global warming had a lot to do with it, therefore we need to do better as a country to improve our issues.

CNN.com; http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/06/opinion/flynn-storms-preparation/index.html?iref=allsearch

CNN.com; http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/15/us/2012-global-warming/index.html?iref=allsearch

NY times; http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/did-global-warming-contribute-to-hurricane-sandys-devastation/