Hurricane Sandy was the deadliest and most destructive hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, as well as the second-costliest hurricane in United States history. Classified as the eighteenth named storm, tenth hurricane and second major hurricane of the year of 2012, Sandy was a Category 3 storm at its peak intensity when it made landfall in Cuba. While it was a Category 2 storm off the coast of the Northeastern United States, the storm became the largest Atlantic hurricane on record (as measured by diameter, with winds spanning 1,100 miles (1,800 km)). Estimates as of June 2013 assess damage to have been over $68 billion (2013 USD), a total surpassed only by Hurricane Katrina. At least 286 people were killed along the path of the storm in seven countries.

Sandy developed from a tropical wave in the western Caribbean Sea on October 22, quickly strengthened, and was upgraded to Tropical Storm Sandy six hours later. Sandy moved slowly northward toward the Greater Antilles and gradually intensified. On October 24, Sandy became a hurricane, made landfall near Kingston, Jamaica, and re-emerged a few hours later into the Caribbean Sea and strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane. On October 25, Sandy hit Cuba as a Category 3 hurricane, and then weakened to a Category 1 hurricane. Many experts who predicted the storm believe that it is tied to global warming. Well, we all somehow have seeing people talk whether on the radio or TV, even at home about how the earth is changing and its temperature. Those climate changes are really affecting our environment and in return causing devastating natural disaster as earthquakes, volcanic eruption, as well as strong hurricane like sandy.

I do believe that Sandy is a possible global warming manifestation and I have researched a few sites to prove my beliefs.

According to NCAR senior climatologist Kevin E. Trenberth, “the storm was caused by “natural variability” but adds that it was “enhanced by global warming”. One factor contributing to the storm’s strength was abnormally warm sea surface temperatures offshore the East Coast of the United States—more than 3 °C (5 °F) above normal, to which global warming had contributed 0.6 °C (1 °F).  As the temperature of the atmosphere increases, the capacity to hold water increases, leading to stronger storms and higher rainfall amounts.

As they move north, Atlantic hurricanes typically are forced east and out to sea by the Prevailing Westerlies. In Sandy’s case, this typical pattern was blocked by a ridge of high pressure over Greenland resulting in a negative North Atlantic Oscillation, forming a kink in the jet stream, causing it to double back on itself off the East Coast. Mark Fischetti of Scientific American said that the jet stream’s unusual shape was caused by the melting of Arctic ice.

 

According to another source:

Global warming theory (Emanuel, 2005) predicts that a 2°C (3.6°F) increase in ocean temperatures should cause an increase in the peak winds of the strongest hurricanes of about about 10%. Furthermore, warmer ocean temperatures are expected to cause hurricanes to dump 20% more rain in their cores by the year 2100, according to computer modeling studies (Knutson et al., 2010). We have pushed our climate system to a fundamentally new, higher-energy state where more heat and moisture is available to power stronger storms, and we should be concerned about the possibility that Hurricane Sandy’s freak size and power were partially due to human-caused climate change.

From a third source:

There are three different ways climate change might have influenced Sandy: through the effects of sea level rise; through abnormally warm sea surface temperatures; and possibly through an unusual weather pattern that some scientists think bore the fingerprint of rapidly disappearing Arctic sea ice.

It is certain that our sea levels are rising, the climate are changing, and those turbulences are tied to the prediction of global warming. Some people might still doubt that there is a relation, but the clues and hints are appearing in front of our eyes every day and unfortunately things are just going to get worse because the thing that we depends on are the ones that are also contributing to the change in our planet.

 

 

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/how-global-warming-made-hurricane-sandy-worse-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Sandy

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/hurricane-sandys-huge-size-freak-of-nature-or-climate-change