Hurricane Sandy, or as it was dubbed by the ever-sensationalist media world, “Superstorm Sandy,” was a storm that raged across the Caribbean and a large portion of the northeastern United States between October 22nd and October 31st. At its peak Sandy was classified as a Category 2 hurricane, meaning that it was on the lesser side of terrifying (easy to say for someone like me who followed the coverage of it from across the ocean safely in my Prague dorm room), but still incredibly dangerous and destructive. It is estimated that Sandy caused over $75 billion in damages and killed 253 people in total from seven different countries. Perhaps the most lasting image Americans took from the storm was the dramatic flooding of New York City’s subway systems. Several US states declared states of emergency in preparation for the storm, and as a result the human loss was thankfully curtailed from what it could have been.
The real question that continues to be asked as the world is plagued with the striking blows of hurricane after hurricane in an incredibly varied range of places has become this: How much is human initiated global warming affecting the strength and frequency of these big storms? I won’t leave you in suspense. The answer from scientists appears to be overwhelmingly that, yes indeed, global warming has a significant effect on the strength of storms such as Sandy.
One effect of global warming is that the sea level is rising to noticeable levels. This can be linked partially to irregularly melting polar ice caps, the rate of which broke records this past August in Greenland. Penn State climatology scientist Michael Man says that, “…sea levels are 1 foot (30 centimeters) higher than they were a century ago,” which gave Sandy an added boost that aided its record breaking 13.2 foot storm surge that hit New York. Another effect of global warming that helps fuel hurricanes and tropical storms such as Sandy is the rising sea surface temperatures. Higher sea surface temperatures means there is more vapor in the air for storms to suck up in their development, which is then poured down on affected areas as torrential rain.
Scientists have formulated for years that a high pressure system over the North Atlantic region has “pushed” storms such as hurricane Sandy out to the Atlantic Ocean, avoiding landfall in the northeast area of the US on normal occasions. However Sandy obviously wasn’t pushed out to sea, and turned directly into the continent, puzzling scientists. It is a theory of researcher George Stone that global warming may have actually affected the jet stream and pressure system over the northeastern continental US, and if this is true then, “we might attribute a large part of Sandy to climate change…”
While scientists are in almost unanimous consensus that global climate change has a measurable and real effect on hurricanes and other types of severe weather, it is incredibly important to stress that correlation is not causation. Hurricanes would happen with or without human beings on the planet. So to say Hurricane Sandy was “caused” by global warming would be inaccurate. However, to say global warming had no effect on the surprisingly strong storm would be similarly incorrect.
Sources:
Hilary Russ – Reuters New York, New Jersey put $71B price tag on Sandy (11/27/2012) http://news.msn.com/us/new-york-new-jersey-put-dollar71b-price-tag-on-sandy
Jeanna Bryner Melting of Greenland Ice Sheet Breaks 30-Year Record (8/15/2012) http://www.livescience.com/22387-greenland-melting-breaks-record.html
Douglas Main – LiveScience Hurricane Sandy Damage Partly Caused By Climate Change, Scientists Say (11/6/2012) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/06/hurricane-damage-climate-change_n_2081960.html