- Governor Cuomo Makes Unprecedented Suggestion About Possible City Levee Construction
- Despite a chorus of support for the climate change link, some experts deny there is enough evidence to blame global warming for the storm.
Hurricane Sandy may have seemed exceptionally damaging to those in its path, but some have suggested that global warming could bring even more devastating storms to the United States in the coming years.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Michael Bloomberg pointed to climate change as the culprit for Sandy’s ravages as they addressed the scale of the destruction Tuesday morning.
And Cuomo even raised the possibility of a sea wall being built in New York Harbor, an unprecedented measure to protect the 400-year-old city.
Both Andrew Cuomo (left) and Michael Bloomberg agree that climate change is one of the causes of the superstorm.
Many observers have noted that it is almost impossible to identify climate change as the cause of specific weather events.
Additionally, the United States has long been subject to hurricanes and other damaging storms that have been as violent as Sandy.
But the terrors brought on by Sandy, combined with last year’s destructive Hurricane Irene, have led top officials in New York to raise the specter of global warming.
At a news conference in Manhattan on Tuesday, Cuomo said he had told President Obama that “we now have a 100-year flood every two years.”
He added: “There have been a number of extreme weather incidents. That is not a political statement. That is a factual statement.
“I think anyone who says there isn’t a dramatic change in weather patterns is denying reality.”
Bloomberg echoed the sentiment, saying: ‘What is clear is that the storms we have experienced over the past year in this country and around the world are much more severe than before.
“Whether it’s global warming or what, I don’t know, but we’ll have to address those issues.”
When the governor was asked if officials were contemplating building a seawall in the city’s harbor, he responded, “It’s something we’re going to have to start thinking about.”
‘The construction of this city did not anticipate this type of situation. We are only a few meters above sea level.
Since the founding of New York City in the early 17th century, Lower Manhattan has been at the heart of metropolitan life, despite its vulnerability to harbor flooding.
Unsurprisingly, Al Gore joined the climate change chorus on Tuesday, describing the hurricane as “a disturbing sign of things to come” in a blog post.
“We must heed this warning and act quickly to resolve the climate crisis,” the former vice president added.
Two possible links between global warming and the damage caused by Sandy are rising sea levels, which facilitate coastal flooding, and warm air in the Atlantic Ocean that increases the storm’s ferocity.
However, many experts have denied that climate change was behind Hurricane Sandy: Houston Chronicle science journalist Eric Bergen wrote that the connection was “a stretch that is simply not supported by science at this time.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has previously said there is little evidence that global warming makes tropical storms and hurricanes worse.
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