As Hurricane Sandy bears down on New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and about 10 other states.
I'm working late tonight-so I have been following the storms path on the news. Upwards of 1 million people are without power. Evidently Atlantic City, Cape May and New York are getting the stuffing beaten out of them.
The Atlantic has a good post up-pointing out that the likelyhood is we will see more of these types of storms-not less:
But the scary thing out there isn't annoying journalists hyping every hurricane like mad, but rather that storms like Sandy will be more commonplace. And instead of being a "storm of a century" Sandy and "storms of the century" like it, could be storms we could start seeing more and more of. Though scientists don't really want to go out on a limb linking extreme weather to climate change—NPRs' Adam Frank goes into this brilliantly—they are pretty clear on one thing:
Oceans Are Getting Warmer. That means hurricane season is getting longer: "When you heat the oceans more, you extend the length of hurricane season," Weather Underground's Dr. Jeff Masters (seriously, go read his stuff) told Democracy Now. "There’s been ample evidence over the last decade or so that hurricane season is getting longer—it starts earlier, ends later. You’re more likely to get these sort of late October storms now," he adds. As NPR's Frank explains, a warmer ocean means more evaporation, and evaporation means more storms. According to an MIT study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, scientists found a connection between warmer years and strong hurricanes. In that same vein, warmer oceans give storms like Sandy more energy to sustain themselves. And it just so happens that in the first six months of 2012, sea surface temperatures on the Northeast Continental Shelf experienced record highs.
The increase of the number of hurricanes increases the chance of one of them lurching toward the Northeast, and that's one reason why we can't just throw around the term "storm of the century" whenever we feel like it (otherwise, we'd be the journalists who cried "storm of the…").
This storm is going to be a real mess that is to be sure.
Skippy,
You must be the most credulous man on the planet. You believe anything at all if you see it in writing. Did you ever believe in global warming and AGW? Sure you did/do. So anyway the fake science behind all that nonsense posits that the earth's atmosphere is warming about a quarter of a degree over 100 years and you think the oceans are warming too. Probably at the same rate. To stress about it is profoundly stupid since there is absolutely nothing you or anybody can do about it. It's like earthquakes everywhere except Italy where they are subject to Italian law.
I've accepted climate change as a fact for a long time. And I am at a loss to understand why wingnuts are so adamant and determined to prove there is no global warming-when in fact the documentary evidence is clear cut. James Fallows probably has it right when he points out that we are now with respect to Climate Change-where people were with cigarette smoking in the 1960's.
" Of course no one can prove that this storm was "caused by" climate change and global warming. But the increasingly frequent occurrence of "unusual," "extreme," and "once per century" weather events — heat, cold, drought, flood — is in keeping with all warnings about the effects of climate change (as explained here). I'm not arguing the entire climate change case now, and don't have special standing to do so anyway. I am saying that this reminds me of the mounting evidence about smoking and health, when I was a kid — the medical conventions my father went to in the early 1960s were full of smokers, those a decade later had practically no smokers — or about environmentalism generally in the 'Silent Spring' era. Denialism continues, until all of a sudden it is irrelevant."
Skippy,
I can believe in Climate Change, caused by natural causes and nothing to do with humans. Case in point, take a look at some of the recent finds in the Arabian peninsula around the areas of Oman, and Yemen, where scientist have been able to find using infrared from space ancient river beds and trails that traders used a very long time ago. It was also during more recent times (I say that around the time we have started using the Christian calendar at least 2012 years) that parts of the Sahara desert were more habitable and green than they are now. But, the earth's climate changed and those areas turned ot desert as they are now. And guess what, there were polar bears back then and there are still polar bears are still here now. If their numbers are being reduced, it because of over hunting not because of the climate.
i live iin Atlantic city and stayed. Power was out for four days. the basement flooded.
casinos survived and parts of the city were devastated.
its pod to,have heat again though no hot water as the water heater was affected by flood in basement.
that bay water just keeps pouring in..the bay is two long blocks away…