Climate Change Action

Hurricane Sandy was the largest Atlantic storm ever recorded, it had a huge impact along much of the United States eastern seaboard. Partly due to it creating the lowest atmospheric pressure at its latitude ever recorded; this created a huge upswell of water.

Paraphrasing Bill Clintons famous 'Its The Economy Stupid' Bloomberg Buisiness Week lead with 'Its Global Warming Stupid'.

But what are the experts saying? Attributing a single event to climate change as BusinessWeek appear to is notoriously difficult to do but statements like 'we can expect a lot more of this in the future due to climate change' are more easily argued. In fact on the Scientific American website Mark Fischetti argues that climate change is already increading the number of large storms to be found across the Atlantic united states.

Columbia University's Earth Institute created a dedicated website with some highlights bellow:

The Science and the Lessons of Hurricane Sandy (link)
This is a wake-up call, don’t hit the snooze button (link)
Researcher Klaus Jacob anticipated these hazards years ago; in this video, he talks about how he was personally affected, and what needs to be done. (link)

Hurricane Sandy in the Scientific Press

Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions: Factsheet on Hurricane Sandy and Climate Change (link)
Smithsonian Institute Online: Did climate change cause hurricane sandy?
*Top Pick* Scientific American: Special Hurricane Sandy Website.
Science journal Nature has a "news explainer" on the issues.

Background Reading:

Media Coverage Review: Carbon Brief, a website analysing media coverage of climate change has produced a summary of the media narative around sandy.
Climate Science Review: Skeptical Science has a detailed overview of the climate science issues around hurricane sandy.
Climate Science of Extreme Events: Intergovornmental Pannel on Climate Change Report on Extreme Climate Events. (link)