Hi all,

The linked editorial was reprinted in our local paper, and even though I disagree on much of what this guy usually says, I am not so quick to say that global warming made Sandy so unusual. Two things made Sandy unusual:
1: it was blocked from going out to sea by high pressure. This happens now and then but the extreme west bend was unusual. It seems a stretch that warming would cause that.
2: It was a superstorm, like the 1991 Perfect Storm except more intense. It was a hurricane within a Nor'easter. I heard, but don't know if it was true, that water temperatures were a couple degrees F above normal, which might have contributed to Sandy maintaining convection in a warm core. Beside that, I don't see why warming would make a superstorm. Indeed, it was a strong jet stream transferring energy to Sandy that made it big. And, the temperature gradient with cold air and snow to the west was part of that.

Yes, man-induced global warming is just a scientific fact. All the rest of the details are up for discussion. I think in out lifetimes (for those of us who make it another 20 or 30 years) it will become really obvious that something bad is happening...in 25 years or less CO2 will be 450 ppm.

I'll see if I learn anything from the Nova.
Chris

• Editorial on Sandy and climate change