After doing some research, I would definitely say that global warming contributed to Hurricane Sandy. Although hurricanes are naturally occurring events thats happen during “hurricane season”,  global warming was a reason why the storm did much more damage compared to a storm in recent years. According to the Huffington post during the summer of 2012 temperatures in the Arctic Sea reached record breaking numbers causing water levels to rapidly rise. Pennsylvania State University climatologist Michael Mann said that “At least 1 foot of those 13.2 feet was arguably due to sea-level rise.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/06/hurricane-damage-climate-change_n_2081960.html

High-pressured air was blocked by Greenland which pushed the storm towards the East Coast, which is some what contrary to usual activity. The reposition of the jet-stream sent to storm crashing into New York’s coast.

This image is taken from http://www.climatecentral.org/news/how-global-warming-made-hurricane-sandy-worse-15190 and gives a very cool visual of how the storm tracked over the coast.

Another reason that global warming intensified the storm was due to increased sea level temperatures which resulted in an increased amount of water vapor in the air. This helped produce more rain. Some scientists might say that warmer air will actually help the US east coast by pushing storms of the coast and keeping them out to sea.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/09/130902-hurricanes-climate-change-superstorm-sandy-global-warming-storms-science-weather/

The site above supports that claim. This remains to be seen. I still think that with less greenhouse gas emissions the earth would be less warm and water levels would not have risen to record-setting numbers. We have experienced super-storms in the past and none of them have caused as much damage as Sandy did. The facts are there. Carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions are at all time highs and only increasing each day. I find it hard to believe that it is just ironic that water levels and greenhouse gases are breaking numbers and then this storm hits and destroys everything.