# Climate Change and Hurricane Sandy **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 2, 2012, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677 "2012-11-02T16:13:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/1 "2012-11-02T16:13:04Z")
Some politicians from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo have came out in the wake of Hurricane Sandy that if there is anything positive to take from the storm, that it should be that we can get past the politics and get to work on the problem of climate change. Of course, they are both politicians, which mitigates their responses to a degree! These are pretty simple questions to ask, but can they be answered reliably and succinctly enough to sway scientifically illiterate Americans: [ul] [li]Did climate change cause Hurricane Sandy?[/li][li]If not cause it, did it contribute to the unique characteristics of the storm?[/li][li]Should coastal cities spend time and resources assuming that storms of this magnitude might become the “new normal” because of our changing climate?[/li][li]Or was it just a freak event that would have happened 40 years ago?[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/2 "2012-11-02T16:37:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Did climate change cause Hurricane Sandy? My guess is ‘no way to really know this for sure’ is the answer. Certainly a case can be made that it contributed, but the storm wasn’t outside of any sort of potential parameters for such a storm (a similar storm to this happened in '91, IIRC). > [@](#): > > If not cause it, did it contribute to the unique characteristics of the storm? No way to really know, but it’s certainly plausible that more energy in our environment could have meant more power into this storm. Obviously weather patterns have been shifting too, so it’s plausible that this also contributed. But I doubt any real scientist is going to come out and say definitively that the storm was CAUSED by Global Warming, or even that they can know with certain knowledge that it even contributed to it. > [@](#): > > Should coastal cities spend time and resources assuming that storms of this magnitude might become the “new normal” because of our changing climate? I think the ‘new normal’ thing is jumping the gun…again, I don’t see scientists saying that. But, I don’t think it would be a bad idea for coastal cities to start thinking about such defenses. Even if Sandy had nothing to do with Global Warming, such storms are always possible, and as can be seen by the amount of damage, quite costly when they happen. Mitigating that seems like it would be a good idea to me. > [@](#): > > Or was it just a freak event that would have happened 40 years ago? Whether it was directly or indirectly caused by Global Warming, it was still a, um, perfect storm of events that caused it all to come together when and where it happened. It’s also nothing outside of the realm of what storms could be, with or without Global Warming. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/3 "2012-11-02T16:42:49Z")
Question #1 is unanswerable. Climate change is a trend, not an event; assigning any one weather event to it is pointless. The “unique characteristics” were mostly a matter of bad timing. The storm merged with a cold front (the so-called “Perfect Storm” scanario) and it did so at high tide over the most heavily-populated part of the US. To jump to your last question, yes it most certainly could have happened 40 years ago. Or 100 years ago. As for all this “new normal” stuff, give people a week or so to get over the hysteria and frustriation, then see how many people are still talking about the new normal. You have to keep in mind that building huge levees all along the New Jersey shore would (A) cost a fortune, (B) take decades to complete, and © would ruin the shoreline for the 99.999% of the time that a massive hurricane _isn’t_ hitting the coast. I’m not saying that some sort of preparations shouldn’t be taken, but you need to make these decisions with a sound mind. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/4 "2012-11-02T17:17:21Z")
Climate change had nothing to do with it. Year over year, ‘global warming’ is dwarfed by natural variations in temperature. In theory, warmer temperatures mean more energy, which could translate into more severe weather effects. But even this isn’t certain, as the mechanisms of energy transfer in weather are still not perfectly understood. Hurricane Katrina was also blamed on climate change, but after Katrina followed a number of years of below-average extreme weather events, and global warming advocates were quick to run out and say what I’m saying now - that the absence of severe weather or a few years of cooling is part of the natural variation inherent in climate, and does not disprove global warming. If that’s the case, then even a few years of above-average extreme weather or higher temperatures does not prove global warming, either. And in fact, there has been no significant warming for some time now, so that’s another reason to say that global warming had nothing to do with Sandy. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/5 "2012-11-02T17:29:05Z")
Has there been an unusual pattern of severe weather events in recent years? As for natural variations, I’m guessing what we’re seeing instead of warming trend/cooling trend is sharply warming trend/flat trend because the whole curve is tilted upwards a little. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/6 "2012-11-02T17:51:55Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Climate change had nothing to do with it. Year over year, ‘global warming’ is dwarfed by natural variations in temperature. In theory, warmer temperatures mean more energy, which could translate into more severe weather effects. But even this isn’t certain, as the mechanisms of energy transfer in weather are still not perfectly understood. > : : : : > > And in fact, there has been no significant warming for some time now, so that’s another reason to say that global warming had nothing to do with Sandy. While I agree that there’s no way to ascribe Sandy to either global warming or rising sea levels, when you can predict a poster’s response to a question based on their political orientation, then it’s probably the case that Science isn’t happening. As for no significant warming lately – [it looks to me like this has been an exceptionally warm year.](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2012/8) So without getting into the reasons for why it was so warm, there certainly was a lot of energy around to fuel a big storm. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/7 "2012-11-02T17:57:18Z")
There goes Sam Again. Your “There has been no significant warming for some time now” is 100% bullshit from discredited contrarian sites. As for the OP: > [@](#): > > Did climate change cause Hurricane Sandy? Wrong question, as it has been pointed many times before, this is not against you, but I have to be clear on this, contrarians and false skeptics know how to make questions to elicit misleading replies that are then exponentially turned into even more misleading information in their stupid sites. The questions were made to generate replies from scientists that were used to make the scientists say the opposite of what they reported, and this is a case in point: Dr. Jones from England was made to reply that there was no significant warming, and it came like that because the question was framed by fake skeptics to boast in their sites: > **[Global warming since 1995 'now significant'](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13719510)** > > Phil Jones, the climate scientist at the centre of "ClimateGate", says previous comments on global temperatures have been superseded by new data. > [@](#): > > Last year, he told BBC News that post-1995 warming was not significant - a statement still seen on blogs critical of the idea of man-made climate change. > > But another year of data has pushed the trend past the threshold usually used to assess whether trends are “real”. > > Dr Jones says this shows the importance of using longer records for analysis. > > By widespread convention, scientists use a minimum threshold of 95% to assess whether a trend is likely to be down to an underlying cause, rather than emerging by chance. > > If a trend meets the 95% threshold, it basically means that the odds of it being down to chance are less than one in 20. > > Last year’s analysis, which went to 2009, did not reach this threshold; but adding data for 2010 takes it over the line. > > “The trend over the period 1995-2009 was significant at the 90% level, but wasn’t significant at the standard 95% level that people use,” Professor Jones told BBC News. > > "Basically what’s changed is one more year [of data]. That period 1995-2009 was just 15 years - and because of the uncertainty in estimating trends over short periods, an extra year has made that trend significant at the 95% level which is the traditional threshold that statisticians have used for many years. > > “It just shows the difficulty of achieving significance with a short time series, and that’s why longer series - 20 or 30 years - would be a much better way of estimating trends and getting significance on a consistent basis.” > > Professor Jones’ previous comment, from a BBC interview in Febuary 2010, is routinely quoted - erroneously - as demonstration that the Earth’s surface temperature is not rising. That was then, and it is bullshit that is still being propagated in the right wing blogosphere, the related bullshit that is being made now consists in asking the wrong question and get the answer they want, the right question is indeed the following one made in the OP, Global warming is indeed making those storms worse. [http://climatecrocks.com/2012/10/31/bookmark-this-one-trenberths-take-on-sandy/](http://climatecrocks.com/2012/10/31/bookmark-this-one-trenberths-take-on-sandy/) > [@](#): > > Global climate change has contributed to the higher sea surface and sub-surface ocean temperatures, a warmer and moister atmosphere above the ocean, higher water levels around the globe, and perhaps more precipitation in storms. > > The super storm Sandy follows on the heels of Isaac earlier this year and Irene last year, both of which also produced widespread flooding as further evidence of the increased water vapor in the atmosphere associated with warmer oceans. Active hurricane seasons in the North Atlantic since 1994 have so far peaked with three category 5 hurricanes in the record breaking 2005 season, one of which was Katrina. As human-induced effects through increases in heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere continue, still warmer oceans and higher sea levels are guaranteed. As Mark Twain said in the late 19th century, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Now humans are changing the weather, and nobody does anything about it! As we have seen this year, whether from drought, heat waves and wild fires, or super storms, there is a cost to not taking action to slow climate change, and we are experiencing this now. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/8 "2012-11-02T18:23:11Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > While I agree that there’s no way to ascribe Sandy to either global warming or rising sea levels, when you can predict a poster’s response to a question based on their political orientation, then it’s probably the case that Science isn’t happening. So if global warming isn’t the cause, and I post a message saying it isn’t the cause, then by definition it must be anti-scientific - because the facts align with my beliefs? Wow. Crazy world you live in. > [@](#): > > As for no significant warming lately – [it looks to me like this has been an exceptionally warm year.](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2012/8) So without getting into the reasons for why it was so warm, there certainly was a lot of energy around to fuel a big storm. No significant warming _attributable to man-caused global warming_. This could be the hottest year on record without being caused by global warming - or it could be the coldest year on record without disproving it. As I said in my ‘unscientific’ post, the annual natural variation in temperature absolutely swamps the global warming ‘signal’ - by at least an order of magnitude. Even the most extreme estimates of global warming amount to less than a tenth of a degree per year in average temperature rise, when natural climate variation is more like 2 degrees C. And that’s averaged over the globe. In a local area like New York or even North America, the annual variation in temperature is much higher. In any given year, whether the oceans are warmer or colder or the air warmer and colder will have more to do with shorter-term events like the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, which imposes a much larger signal on local annual climate than does global warming. > [@Gigobuster](#): > > There goes Sam Again. > > Your “There has been no significant warming for some time now” is 100% bullshit from discredited contrarian sites. No, it isn’t. I’m not talking about the ‘16 years of no warming’ meme that is determined by tracking back to a local high point and using that as a starting frame of reference. That is indeed bullshit, but it’s not what I said. I said what I meant, which is that there has been no _significant_ warming due to AGW in the past few years. I used ‘significant’ in the scientific sense, as in “It’s a significant contributor to annual weather events.” In fact, the global warming signal is so small that random fluctuations in annual temperature can easily give the impression that it’s not occurring at all. There have been periods in the past where the global warming ‘signal’ was masked by random fluctuations in annual temperatures that just happened to average in the other direction. And you really have to stop poisoning the well by attributing anything that conflicts with your catastrophic global warming fixation with ‘contrarian sites’. You have no idea where I get my information from. And I’ve already patiently explained to you many times that I believe global warming is real, that man is helping to cause it, and that the basic science is sound. It’s just that in this case, there’s no evidence that global warming had anything to do with Sandy. If you’re going to insist that global warming is involved when a bad thing happens, then don’t blame me when the ‘contrarians’ throw that argument back in your face next time we go through a few years of cooling or low numbers of extreme weather events, due to natural variation. You can’t have it both ways and be taken seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/9 "2012-11-02T18:39:03Z")
[quote=“Sam\_Stone, post:8, topic:639677”] So if global warming isn’t the cause, and I post a message saying it isn’t the cause, then by definition it must be anti-scientific - because the facts align with my beliefs? Wow. Crazy world you live in. [quote] No way to determine if a specific event was caused by global warming does not == “global warming isn’t the cause”. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > No significant warming _attributable to man-caused global warming_. This could be the hottest year on record without being caused by global warming - or it could be the coldest year on record without disproving it. Sam, read the OP again. Does it say anything about _man-caused_ global warming? It does not. It does ask if climate change should be addressed. It appears that the climate is getting warmer. Higher sea levels will result. So, yes, maybe that should be planned for. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/10 "2012-11-02T18:49:24Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > No, it isn’t. I’m not talking about the ‘16 years of no warming’ meme that is determined by tracking back to a local high point and using that as a starting frame of reference. That is indeed bullshit, but it’s not what I said. I said what I meant, which is that there has been no _significant_ warming due to AGW in the past few years. I used ‘significant’ in the scientific sense, as in “It’s a significant contributor to annual weather events.” In fact, the global warming signal is so small that random fluctuations in annual temperature can easily give the impression that it’s not occurring at all. There have been periods in the past where the global warming ‘signal’ was masked by random fluctuations in annual temperatures that just happened to average in the other direction. Funny thing but you are trying to avoid the context, indeed that 16 years of no warming is bullshit, and your backtracking here is still a little bit misleading, scientists are reporting there is significant warming so this item of “signal is so small” is still silly. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And you really have to stop poisoning the well by attributing anything that conflicts with your catastrophic global warming fixation with ‘contrarian sites’. You have no idea where I get my information from. And I’ve already patiently explained to you many times that I believe global warming is real, that man is helping to cause it, and that the basic science is sound. It’s just that in this case, there’s no evidence that global warming had anything to do with Sandy. > > If you’re going to insist that global warming is involved when a bad thing happens, then don’t blame me when the ‘contrarians’ throw that argument back in your face next time we go through a few years of cooling or low numbers of extreme weather events, due to natural variation. You can’t have it both ways and be taken seriously. And here is also yet again another boiler plate contrarian item, really \*\*Sam \*\*it is you who is poisoning the well, stop blaming others for the poisoning of the sources you rely on. Just on the warming of the oceans, the increase in water vapor and the increase in energy observed it is really silly to claim that there is no evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/11 "2012-11-02T18:59:29Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > > > So if global warming isn’t the cause, and I post a message saying it isn’t the cause, then by definition it must be anti-scientific - because the facts align with my beliefs? Wow. Crazy world you live in. > > No way to determine if a specific event was caused by global warming does not == “global warming isn’t the cause”. Well, there’s no way to determine if Sandy was caused by El-Nino, either. Or by a butterfly flapping its wings. Or by particulates from a bonfire in Bermuda seeding a cloud. The fact is, weather (as opposed to climate) is unpredictable and chaotic. And there are a number of climate drivers like the El Nino and other ocean current patterns that have a much greater short-term effect on local temperatures than does global warming. So any scientist that comes out and starts yakking about global warming as a cause of this event is engaging in politics, not science. > [@](#): > > Sam, read the OP again. Does it say anything about _man-caused_ global warming? It does not. It does ask if climate change should be addressed. It appears that the climate is getting warmer. Higher sea levels will result. So, yes, maybe that should be planned for. The main question in the OP was whether or not global warming caused Hurricane Sandy or at least made it worse. If we’re not talking about man-caused global warming, I fail to see the point of the question. In fact, if we’re talking about the natural warming that has occurred in the inter-glacial period, the answer is obviously ‘yes’, since I think it’s safe to say that this hurricane wouldn’t have happened if we were still in an ice age. So that’s rather pointless to include, isn’t it? The OP did ask if something should be done about future events like this because of global warming. The answer is ‘yes’. Engineers should be looking at the barriers in place on the coastline and other factors which might change if the ocean levels rise by a few centimeters. The other thing that could be done, but which won’t be, would be to stop giving out federally-funded flood insurance to wealthy homeowners which incentivizes them to build mansions in coastal flood areas. At the very least, such flood insurance should be priced appropriately, and global warming should cause that price to increase as the risks of flooding increase. And a proper market response would be for insurance companies to look at their extreme-weather policies, and if the rate of extreme weather damage claims increases, they should raise their premiums accordingly. This will help with the slow transition of development away from the areas most affected by global warming. Of course, something tells me that such rate increases will be opposed by the very people who believe that _government_ should ‘do something’ about global warming. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/12 "2012-11-02T19:06:43Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Well, there’s no way to determine if Sandy was caused by El-Nino, either. Or by a butterfly flapping its wings. Or by particulates from a bonfire in Bermuda seeding a cloud. > > The fact is, weather (as opposed to climate) is unpredictable and chaotic. And there are a number of climate drivers like the El Nino and other ocean current patterns that have a much greater short-term effect on local temperatures than does global warming. So any scientist that comes out and starts yakking about global warming as a cause of this event is engaging in politics, not science. And is clear as day that I was correct, this is only framing the issue by just claiming that scientists are just talking about about global warming causing this, they are not. What they report however (and it is a big however) Global Warming an element that is in the background that then makes what nature trows at us to be worse than before. > **[News | NCAR & UCAR News](https://news.ucar.edu/)** ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/13 "2012-11-02T19:09:20Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Funny thing but you are trying to avoid the context, indeed that 16 years of no warming is bullshit, and your backtracking here is still a little bit misleading, scientists are reporting there is significant warming so this item of “signal is so small” is still silly. You’re losing me. What context am I avoiding? And what backtracking did I do? You tried to put words in my mouth, and I disagreed. That’s not a ‘backtrack’. That’s you making a false accusation. > [@](#): > > And here is also yet again another boiler plate contrarian item, really \*\*Sam \*\*it is you who is poisoning the well, stop blaming others for the poisoning of the sources you rely on. The source I rely on is the FREAKING IPCC. You’re the one who is always changing the rules as to what constitutes an acceptable cite. When individual studies come out that find values for warming lower than the IPCC, you insist that the IPCC is our best source for the ‘scientific consensus’ and should be believed over any individual paper which might contradict it. But when a paper comes out that reports a more extreme interpretation of global warming, suddenly you treat the IPCC as if it’s a bunch of old fuddy-duddies way behind the times. And in the meantime, any time you read anything which doesn’t align perfectly with your catastrophic global warming evangelism, you write it off as ‘contrarian nonsense’. Likewise, when some ‘contrarian’ points out that a particular year or series of years is cooler than in years past, you’re the first one to explain that local temperature trends have nothing to do with global warming. But if the temperature is warmer than average or a devastating natural event occurs, suddenly global warming is the prime suspect. > [@](#): > > Just on the warming of the oceans, the increase in water vapor and the increase in energy observed it is really silly to claim that there is no evidence. So, how much would you say the variation in today’s ocean temperature off New York is due to global warming, and how much is due to El-Nino/La Nina, and how much is due to other factors, some of which we don’t fully understand? I’ll accept answers accurate to an order of magnitude. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/14 "2012-11-02T19:16:31Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And is clear as day that I was correct, this is only framing the issue by just claiming that scientists are just talking about about global warming causing this, they are not. What they report however (and it is a big however) Global Warming an element that is in the background that then makes what nature trows at us to be worse than before. > > [News | NCAR & UCAR News](https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/attribution/steroids-baseball-climate-change) Yes, in the _long term_ I can buy that. If you had said, “Global warming suggests that hurricanes may be more powerful 50 years from now, and may occur with greater frequency”, I’d have no problem with that because you are talking generally, and over a large time frame. But when it comes to any _specific_ weather effect, we certainly cannot say that. In fact, even if global warming causes the average hurricane to be more powerful, it could easily be the case that a specific hurricane could be less powerful because of global warming, simply because of the way the various interactions occurred that caused that particular storm. For example, a higher frequency of storms could mean that for any specific storm, the energy available is lower. Or even if the average event is more energetic, if the planet were hotter today perhaps the storm would have formed earlier and blown itself out while still at sea, or it might have come from a different direction and not hit New York City, or it might have not happened at all because another mega-storm sapped the energy and delivered it elsewhere in a harmless location. Like I said - climate can be predicted and trends can be mapped, but local weather is chaotic. Again, the IPCC mentions this stuff, but at least they are careful to couch it in terms of ‘likelihood’ and with sufficient caveats about over-interpreting the cause of any specific weather event. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/15 "2012-11-02T19:20:31Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The source I rely on is the FREAKING IPCC. You’re the one who is always changing the rules as to what constitutes an acceptable cite. When individual studies come out that find values for warming lower than the IPCC, you insist that the IPCC is our best source for the ‘scientific consensus’ and should be believed over any individual paper which might contradict it. But when a paper comes out that reports a more extreme interpretation of global warming, suddenly you treat the IPCC as if it’s a bunch of old fuddy-duddies way behind the times. And in the meantime, any time you read anything which doesn’t align perfectly with your catastrophic global warming evangelism, you write it off as ‘contrarian nonsense’. We talked about this before you are relying only on the last IPCC report, science marches on as Kevin Trenberth could tell you, and in fact he did in his quote and what other scientists are reporting, what there are more doubts is on the number of hurricanes that will come in the future, but there is less doubt that they will be even stronger if nothing is done. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Likewise, when some ‘contrarian’ points out that a particular year or series of years is cooler than in years past, you’re the first one to explain that local temperature trends have nothing to do with global warming. But if the temperature is warmer than average or a devastating natural event occurs, suddenly global warming is the prime suspect. And here you betray your say so that you are looking at the science: [http://www.ipcc.ch/publications\_and\_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-7.html](http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-7.html) > [@](#): > > The evidence from surface temperature observations is strong: **The observed warming is highly significant relative to estimates of internal climate variability which, while obtained from models, are consistent with estimates obtained from both instrumental data and palaeoclimate reconstructions. It is extremely unlikely (\<5%) that recent global warming is due to internal variability alone such as might arise from El Niño (Section 9.4.1).** The widespread nature of the warming (Figures 3.9 and 9.6) reduces the possibility that the warming could have resulted from internal variability. No known mode of internal variability leads to such widespread, near universal warming as has been observed in the past few decades. \*\*Although modes of internal variability such as El Niño can lead to global average warming for limited periods of time, such warming is regionally variable, with some areas of cooling \*\*(Figures 3.27 and 3.28). In addition, palaeoclimatic evidence indicates that El Niño variability during the 20th century is not unusual relative to earlier periods (Section 9.3.3.2; Chapter 6). Palaeoclimatic evidence suggests that such a widespread warming has not been observed in the NH in at least the past 1.3 kyr (Osborn and Briffa, 2006), further strengthening the evidence that the recent warming is not due to natural internal variability. > > Moreover, the response to anthropogenic forcing is detectable on all continents individually except Antarctica, and in some sub-continental regions. Climate models only reproduce the observed 20th-century global mean surface warming when both anthropogenic and natural forcings are included (Figure 9.5). No model that has used natural forcing only has reproduced the observed global mean warming trend or the continental mean warming trends in all individual continents (except Antarctica) over the second half of the 20th century. Detection and attribution of external influences on 20th-century and palaeoclimatic reconstructions, from both natural and anthropogenic sources (Figure 9.4 and Table 9.4), further strengthens the conclusion that the observed changes are very unusual relative to internal climate variability. When you come right out of the bat with affirmations that not even the IPCC reported it is very clear where you got the contrary information. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/16 "2012-11-02T19:29:31Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Yes, in the _long term_ I can buy that. If you had said, “Global warming suggests that hurricanes may be more powerful 50 years from now, and may occur with greater frequency”, I’d have no problem with that because you are talking generally, and over a large time frame. But when it comes to any _specific_ weather effect, we certainly cannot say that. In fact, even if global warming causes the average hurricane to be more powerful, it could easily be the case that a specific hurricane could be less powerful because of global warming, simply because of the way the various interactions occurred that caused that particular storm. > > For example, a higher frequency of storms could mean that for any specific storm, the energy available is lower. Or even if the average event is more energetic, if the planet were hotter today perhaps the storm would have formed earlier and blown itself out while still at sea, or it might have come from a different direction and not hit New York City, or it might have not happened at all because another mega-storm sapped the energy and delivered it elsewhere in a harmless location. Like I said - climate can be predicted and trends can be mapped, but local weather is chaotic. Of course that points out at what should be going on, and it is part of what the OP is dealing with, virtually all Republicans now are even denying that there is a problem that will get worse if nothing is done, the politicization of this issue remains one of the most irresponsible acts made by a political party in recent memory. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/17 "2012-11-02T19:43:27Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Of course that points out at what should be going on, and it is part of what the OP is dealing with, virtually all Republicans now are even denying that there is a problem that will get worse if nothing is done, the politicization of this issue remains one of the most irresponsible acts made by a political party in recent memory. Agreed, although the more general anti-science stand may be worse. BusinessWeek just weighed in with a rather shocking cover. Article (but not cover) [here](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-01/its-global-warming-stupid) - titled “It’s Global Warming Stupid”. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/18 "2012-11-02T20:16:07Z")
> [@jasg](#): > > Agreed, although the more general anti-science stand may be worse. > > BusinessWeek just weighed in with a rather shocking cover. Article (but not cover) [here](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-01/its-global-warming-stupid) - titled “It’s Global Warming Stupid”. That was going to be my next cite and I thank you for bringing it in, as it has to be remarked again, there is an implied strawman from some posters over here, that some scientists are going around saying that the scientists are claiming that this hurricane was all caused by global warming, that is not what they are saying. From the article linked by **jasg** : > [@](#): > > Mark Fischetti of Scientific American took a spin through Ph.D.-land and found more and more credentialed experts willing to shrug off the climate caveats. **The broadening consensus: “Climate change amps up other basic factors that contribute to big storms. For example, the oceans have warmed, providing more energy for storms. And the Earth’s atmosphere has warmed, so it retains more moisture, which is drawn into storms and is then dumped on us.” Even those of us who are science-phobic can get the gist of that.** ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/19 "2012-11-02T20:41:35Z")
What odd reasoning. We can’t say whether any particular weather event would not have occurred in the absence of AGW. **Yep.** In theory, warmer temperatures mean more energy, which could translate into more severe weather effects, but we don’t understand the mechanism especially well. **Yep.** Extreme weather events could be a consequence of normal variations. **Yep.** Year-to-year trends trump the climate change “signal.” **Yep.** Therefore… “Climate change had nothing to do with it.” 😕😕 ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677/20 "2012-11-02T20:44:24Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > Some politicians from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo have came out in the wake of Hurricane Sandy that if there is anything positive to take from the storm, that it should be that we can get past the politics and get to work on the problem of climate change. > > Of course, they are both politicians, which mitigates their responses to a degree! > > These are pretty simple questions to ask, but can they be answered reliably and succinctly enough to sway scientifically illiterate Americans: > > [ul] > [li]Did climate change cause Hurricane Sandy?[/li][li]If not cause it, did it contribute to the unique characteristics of the storm?[/li][li]Should coastal cities spend time and resources assuming that storms of this magnitude might become the “new normal” because of our changing climate?[/li][li]Or was it just a freak event that would have happened 40 years ago?[/li][/ul] I believe this season we’ve had one major hurricane (less than predicted) and ten regular ones. From the standpoint of assessing “climate change” we should remember that the amount of property damage is not a particularly good measure of any particular storm’s intensity. I’d be a titchy bit more nervous if we had a dozen Cat 3 + storms, even if they took tracks which caused no damage. It does make me chuckle when a storm is particularly damaging and someone comes out and lets me know it’s a harbinger of global warming, stupid. In 1950 we had 8 major hurricanes…had AGW been popular back then, we woulda been really getting the heebie jeebies. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climate-change-and-hurricane-sandy/639677.md?page=2)