Posts Tagged ‘New York City’
Sandy: “I Helped Re-elect President Obama”
Destroyed beachfront in New Jersey
I am aware that my arrival last week helped re-elect President Obama.
Superstorms like me don’t play politics but it should be clear by now that your refusal to tackle global warming has serious consequences. Higher sea levels and amped-up hurricanes like me are just two of them. There is an awful price to pay for burning coal, oil, and natural gas I’m sorry to say.
Putting hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere is trapping more of the sun’s heat energy. CO2 is the planet’s natural heating blanket but those extra hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO2 has made that blanket thicker. And it is getting thicker every year.
Nearly 200 people were killed in the 10 days I traveled from Jamaica to Canada. Most of the deaths were American. The US remains by far the largest emitter of CO2. With a fraction of the world population, the US is responsible for nearly 30 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions from 1860 to 2009. On a person by person basis, Americans have one of the biggest CO2 ‘footprints’.
CO2 emissions per person by country. Courtesy: SIMON DONNER, (Maribo)
Some of you have known for a long time how dangerous CO2 is. The first international conference to address the climate-disrupting impacts of burning coal, oil, and natural gas was held 24 years ago. Called “The Changing Atmosphere: Implications for Global Security” your politicians and scientists concluded:
“humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to a global nuclear war”.
They accurately warned of a dangerous temperature increase without action to reduce emissions. (Conference summary statement)
Knowing all this your oil, coal and gas corporations were allowed to grow to become the world’s most powerful and profitable industry. You gave, and continue to give, those corporations who are making the planet less habitable billions of tax dollars in subsidies.
Now there is so much CO2 in the atmosphere the entire planet is .8C (1F) hotter and that temperature will at least triple. This additional heat energy being trapped by the extra CO2 amounts to exploding 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day 365 days per year. This has spawned more and more destructive extreme weather events. This ‘new normal’ will only worsen as more CO2 is released.
The refusal to tackle global warming has led to nearly 400,000 deaths and more than $1.2 trillion is being lost every year mainly due to damage to food production and from extreme weather linked to climate change. Air pollution caused by the use of fossil fuels is also separately contributing to the deaths of at least 4.5 million people a year. These deaths and costs will only worsen with every additional tonne of CO2.
In human terms CO2 is forever. Your countries’ emissions today will disrupt the climate of your children, grand children and great grandchildren. To minimize the severity and intensity of flooding, droughts, destructive storms and crop failures your CO2 footprint needs to grow smaller and virtually disappear over the next few decades.
The US CO2 footprint has been getting smaller in recent years. The recession, closures of old coal plants and more natural gas has resulted in fewer emissions. Others are doing their part. The British are 18 percent below their emission levels in 1990 and aim to get down to 34 percent by 2020. The US is still well above its 1990s levels. This ongoing failure to act has cost the US its global leadership position.
Studies show the US could become an advanced, 21st century economy thriving on 100 percent renewable energy sources by 2030. The entire planet could run on 100 percent renewable sources by 2050.
This does not appear to be your future. The fossil fuel industry is too powerful and has instilled a fear of change amongst many of you. What you should be truly fearful of is the worsening of powerful storms that kill, the floods that destroy and droughts that will cause hunger for your children and your children’s children.
As you sow so shall you reap.
Anthrostorm Sandy Speaks: My Landfall Near Atlantic City
Natural disaster trends 1900-2009; 2011 and 2012 are off the chart
Earlier I called myself a hybrid storm: part nature, part human. That’s not quite right. Humans and Hurricanes are part of nature. We both thrive on this planet thanks to sunlight, water and carbon dioxide (CO2). Hurricanes and tropical storms have been around for millions of years. In the last 50 years things have changed. The oceans are warmer. This week the waters off the US east coast were 3 degrees C warmer than normal.
The air is warmer at 0.8C (1F) and there is 4 to 6 percent more moisture. This is a fundamental change. The amount of extra heat-energy is like exploding 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day 365 days per year. This is one of the reasons why I am such a large and powerful storm.
All this extra heat is result of human activity — burning fossil fuels and clearing forests. You call these changes human-induced climate change or global warming. I am, in part, a result of human-caused climate change. And so were my 19 brother and sister hurricanes and tropical storms this year.
So what to call us? We need new words. Some call this time of major human impacts on the planet “The Anthropocene”. A big word to describe a big change: the era when humanity is influencing every aspect of life on the planet.
We are the Anthrostorms of the 21st century.
Storm Surge Flooding Warning: “I have too much energy”
Red Hook, Brooklyn – from Nick @greenpainting
I’m sorry to say that I have so much wind energy from the warm ocean water I am pushing the sea into your living rooms along the mid-Atlantic coast. The ocean is like a bowl full of water, blow hard enough on an angle and it will readily spill over.
My winds are topping 150 kph (90 miles per hour). They will lessen as come closer to land but by then so much water will be piled up against the coast there still will be extensive flooding all night long.
Record storm surge flooding has already occurred in regions along the New Jersey coast this morning. At high tide this evening much of the New York and New Jersey coast will experience historic levels of flooding.
Sandy Says: Not “Targeting” New York or Anywhere Else
My Monday morning picture from space
To be absolutely clear: I am not “targeting” New York City or anywhere else. I am pushed and pulled by temperature and pressure differences. My winds are powered by warm water and moisture. And there is enough heat and moisture for my winds to make 12-foot high waves over a 3 million sq km area – one third the size of the US.
CO2 concentrations for last 800,000 years
I don’t want to hurt anyone or cause any damage. I am simply nature’s pressure-relief valve, a way of re-distributing heat energy across the planet. But I’m not entirely natural. For hundreds of thousands of years the levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) averaged 270-280 parts per million (ppm) which trapped enough of the sun’s heat to keep the planet comfortably warm.
Today the CO2 concentration is measured at 390 ppm. That’s nearly 40 per cent more CO2 in the air to capture more heat from the sun. About 90 percent of this extra heat has gone into the oceans.
All this extra CO2 came from your burning coal, oil, and gas and cutting down most of the world’s forests (trees take CO2 from the air to grow). So it’s plain to see that I not entirely natural.
I am truly a hybrid storm: part nature; part human.
Historic SuperStorm Sandy Heading for New York City
Sandy here again. Early this morning I turned north-northwest and am about 500 km (300 mi) southeast of New York City. I am probably the largest storm on record, spanning 3,200 km (2000 mi). I wanted to stay out at sea but a massive band of cold air and low pressure over the Great Lakes region has pulled me in this direction. The coming collision between very cold and moist, warm air will make me more powerful and dangerous: a historic SuperStorm.
It’s impossible to say for certain if the record melt of sea ice in the Arctic is responsible for this. I do know that most of the Arctic sea ice melted this year. Ice reflects the sun’s energy but the dark ocean absorbs it. In order for the Arctic ocean to freeze again the heat has to be released into the air. Right now there are record amounts of heat energy getting into atmosphere up there.
This has been happening every fall for the last few years. It is no surprise that all that extra heat being released has been disrupting weather patterns. The jet stream – the west-to-east winds that are the boundary between the cold Arctic and the warm mid-latitudes – is slowing down, moving north and become more erratic.
Arctic Ice Melt Sept 2012
Another factor that’s pushed me into the US northeast is a massive dome of high pressure located southwest of Greenland. Without this high-pressure block I probably would have resisted the pull of the low pressure system and stayed out to sea. That high pressure system has been locked in place for weeks – weather geeks call it a ‘blocking event’. It delivered a record span of warm temperatures and a record melt of the Greenland ice sheet.
I’ve used the word ‘record’ a lot. That’s because the climate has shifted into uncharted territory because more heat and moisture is being trapped in the atmosphere by an ever thicker blanket of CO2. This summer’s record heat and drought in the US is just one example of this “uncharted territory”.
Things are going to keep changing. Storms like me may get bigger. We may come more often, or we may just show up in places where we don’t usually go. There is no way to know.
All you can be sure of is that the climate of the past 20 and more centuries is gone. I am part of the new normal.
