There has been some muted discussion of Sandy with regard to GW. Nay-sayers not surprisingly cry

[Bill USA]

It's just one isolated event!!!!

but didn't we have a rather large East Coast land-fall hurricane about a year ago... Irene?

And how did Sandy ... and Irene stack up to total energy. Sandy especially, was very LARGE. Nearly a thousand miles in diameter at times. When making landfall in NJ it was causing high wind conditions as far West as Ohio and Michigan. So how much energy was involved in hurricane Sandy? Well, about FIVE TIMES as much as Katrina.* And how about last years Irene. That one was about 1.5 times as energetic as Katrina. *(based on the energy in just the first 1" of water beneath he hurricane)

* http://theenergycollective.com/globalpowerco/137386/how-warm-earth-fueled-hurricane-sandy

Climate change has raised the temprerature of the Atlantic Ocean 5 degrees. Here's how much more energy that meant was in just the first 1" of water under these hurricanes.

The energy accumulated in the sea to drive these hurricanes is increasing thus we are getting much more energetic hurricanes. In this case, one in 2011 1.5 times as energetic and then one season later, Sandy which is about 5 times as energetic as Katrina.

[AverageJoe90]

1. Well......

The truth is, it is indeed possible that something's up. But it's also very possible that Sandy(this year) & Irene(last year) coming out back to back could just be a strange coincidence. We just don't know all the facts yet.

The one thing we are sure of, however, is that a strong possibility exists that these kinds of storms could become more and more common in the future.

[Bill USA]

2. of course we don't know all the facts yet. If we did we'd have to be in the future(already)(chuckle)

I'm not saying that back to back strong hurricanes makes it a closed case. Just that it's worth noting.

The only thing I am saying is rather than looking at wind speed let's look at total energy in the storm. Sandy barely managed hurricane force winds but it was so huge, the amount of total energy is very large. And that is what I was concerned with. And looking at the chart (yes, very far from complete) you can see that Sandy and Irene are considerably larger in terms of total energy than Katrina. Seems like I hear a lot about wind speed but not so much about factoring wind speed by total area (using average wind speed - not maximum) when looking at hurricane strengths.

No, this obviously is not enough data to make for a certainty, but it's pretty interesting.

[AverageJoe90]

3. Very interesting indeed.

The impact of natural disasters like Sandy does make one think about what's been happening to our environment, particularly if they happen to occur side-by-side(Irene hit just last year). And hopefully, Sandy's impact may help provide a wake-up call to some still on the fence.

[limpyhobbler]

4. I think we have enough info now to say human-made climate change is real.

[AverageJoe90]

5. Truth is, we've really had that info for a few decades now.

We really don't know how bad it will get(well, for the most part). We could hit 6*C by 2100 or we might only hit 2*C. Hell, for all we know, this latest run of extreme weather over this past decade globally could have been, in part, just a run of really shitty luck(in fact, that's a possibility that is really far more valid than some may think).

The odds really aren't all that high for a catastrophic scenario to occur, but partly because of the shitty luck we've had, that isn't a gamble that I'm willing to play at all, and I'm sure many will at least agree with me on that.