Sandy was a real wench and her impact is still very much being felt along the Eastern Seaboard. One thing that has been brought up a few times is what impact Global Warming or Climate Change played in Sandy’s creation or strength.
Now, I’m a big lefty, but I also tend to be a little cautious when drawing straight lines between a specific weather event and Climate Change. Big storms have happened for as long as there has been weather. The first hurricane recorded along the East Coast was back in 1502!
So, with that in mind I was interested to see this little clip about how Global Warming is like… get ready for it… steroids in baseball.
So, did Climate Change cause Sandy? Probably not. Did it contribute to it? Probably.
How much? Maybe 10%, according to this snippet:
But, he added, human-induced global warming has been raising the overall temperature of the surface ocean, by about one degree Fahrenheit since the 1970s. So global warming very likely contributed a notable fraction of the energy on which the storm thrived — perhaps as much as 10 percent, he said.
Of course, these storms do impact bonefishing and bonefish and the places they live, the people who live there, the people who depend on those fisheries. Hurricanes have been known to kill mangroves and reefs. Increasing intensity, maybe even frequency… well… could be a bit rougher ride in the years to come.
