The superstorm signals an era of extreme weather that the nation can't afford to ignore.
7:44PM EDT October 30. 2012 - Put the perfect storm atop the nation's most populous region, and the result is the human misery and havoc that Sandy wrought in the Northeast: Nearly 40 people dead so far, and more than 7 million without power. An estimated $20 billion in property damage. Record flooding in New York City that shut down the stock exchange and the subway. Devastation along the New Jersey coast. And, to boot, a blizzard along the spine of the Appalachian mountains.
EDITORIAL: Superstorm forecasting feat, with a catch
All of this overshadowed the presidential campaign, one week before Election Day. But that's not to say the superstorm doesn't have a policy dimension. Even before Sandy churned ashore near Atlantic City on Monday, a debate was raging in scientific and government circles over whether the monster hurricane/nor'easter was a spawn of global warming.
Climate change activists pointed to Sandy as exactly the sort of extraordinary event forecast to occur as the atmosphere and the oceans grow hotter. Skeptics shot back that major hurricanes hit New York in 1821 and 1938, long before fossil-fuel emissions were a factor.
So, freak storm or climate change?
The answer is unknowable. No individual weather event can be conclusively linked to man-made climate change. Scientists also say global warming is more likely to intensify disasters than to cause them. So a logical conclusion is that Sandy would have happened with or without climate change, but that extra heat and humidity fed its strength.
This much seems beyond dispute: Because of man-made warming or natural cycles, or both, the U.S. is in an era of extreme-weather events. A report this month by Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurance firm, confirmed what has been widely suspected. The number of weather-related catastrophes has been rising dramatically since 1980 on all continents, with the steepest increase in North America. Insured losses on the continent soared from an average of $9billion a year in the 1980s to $36billion a year in the 2000s, the study found.
For the short term, then, the United States can't treat each storm as a fluke. The nation needs to maintain its ability to predict and respond to disasters. In particular, that means not allowing the nation's aging fleet of weather satellites to fall into decline. The National Research Council warned in May that the Earth observing system is entering a rapid decrease in capability, as long-running missions end and key new missions are canceled or delayed.
Longer term, the United States, along with other major emitters such as China and India, will need to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
The presidential candidates don't like to talk about climate change, which they ignored during the debates, because the solutions inevitably involve higher energy prices. But as Sandy's mounting toll suggests, the costs of inaction, in tragedy and property, might be even greater.
Source: http://www.news.theusalinks.com/2012/10/30/editorial-sandy-vs-climate-change-politics/
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