Outsmarting The Surge

The devastating superstorm was a sign of things to come. How we can better prepare for a catastrophe-prone future

By Bryan Walsh Monday, Nov. 12, 2012
    • Andrew Quilty / Oculi for TIME

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    Stop ignoring the climate connection.

    Climate scientists are divided on exactly what role global warming plays in making hurricanes like Sandy bigger and stronger. Researchers know that tropical storms derive their energy from warm waters. That's one reason hurricanes are much more common in the hot tropics. The Atlantic Ocean is about 2°F (1°C) warmer on average than it was a century ago, in part because of man-made climate change. Warmer waters generally mean stronger storms, and indeed, scientists have agreed that climate change seems likely to lead to stronger and wetter storms, though possibly fewer of them.

    Then again, Sandy was more than a hurricane. It was a hybrid storm, a tropical cyclone that, as it moved north, drew energy from the sharp differences in temperature and air pressure coming from an atmospheric blocking pattern in the North Atlantic. A tropical cyclone like Sandy usually veers off harmlessly into the Atlantic at this time of year, but that Arctic air pattern forced the storm to take a hard left directly into the heavily populated Northeast.

    That, say most climate scientists, was largely bad luck, though the record Arctic sea-ice melt this summer may have contributed to that northern blocking pattern. But the truth is, there's no way of knowing for sure how much responsibility climate change bears for Sandy, at least not until researchers have had more time to study the storm.

    Here's one thing scientists do know, however: climate change has caused sea levels to rise, which made the storm surges and coastal flooding caused by Sandy all the more devastating. Overall sea levels have risen by 8 in. (20 cm), and the rate has been accelerating recently. That puts coastal cities like Washington and Miami at growing risk for major floods every time a storm strikes. New York City, which saw its subway system flooded and parts of its electricity grid submerged, has more than 580 miles (930 km) of coastline — all of it increasingly encroached by a rising sea. A 2012 paper in Nature projected that climate change could lead to floods that should occur only once a century happening every three to 20 years. It's a visceral reminder that climate change is real and that it generally raises the risks of a range of natural disasters, from heat waves to droughts to storms. The science is clear: cutting carbon emissions over the long term is key to reducing the risk from extreme weather.

    Prepare for the worst.

    At the same time, climate change is being compounded by the human factor. As of 2003, 153 million Americans lived in coastal counties — an increase of 33 million since 1980 — and 3.7 million lived within a few feet of high tide. So when a storm like Sandy strikes — in this case during a full moon, with astronomical high tides — more people and property are in harm's way. Besides cutting carbon emissions, we'll need to adapt to the effects of climate change by building infrastructure that can withstand the devastating coastal storm surges that will become only more common as sea levels rise because of warming. Protection won't be cheap. A 2004 study projected that installing sea barriers to block storm surges in New York City would cost nearly $10 billion. But that may be the price of admission to live in a hot and crowded world.

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