Rendering №9

     The article published on the website of the newspaper "The New York Times" on October 30 is headlined "Did Global Warming Contribute to Hurricane Sandy's Devastation?". The article carries a lot of comment on whether the bizarre storm called Sandy was a product, in whole or in part, of human-induced climate change or not. It's an open secret that climate scientists are just not in a good position to answer this question yet. 

     Speaking of this situation it is interesting to note that several scientists said that  surface temperatures in the western Atlantic Ocean were remarkably high just ahead of the storm — in places, about five degrees Fahrenheit higher than normal for this time of year. In fact, part of the ocean was warmer than it would normally be in September, when accumulated summer heat tends to peak. However, it is necessary to point out that other scientists are looking at this year’s historic loss of sea ice in the Arctic as a potential contributor to the track of Sandy, and possibly to the severity of the storm. In this case it is necessary to point out that Dr. Francis, a Rutgers University climate scientist, noted that an atmospheric blocking pattern over Greenland — possibly linked, in her view, to the loss of sea ice in the nearby Arctic Ocean — had helped force the storm to make a left turn into the United States mainland.

     Nevertheless, there are also signs that  by the end Sandy was also pulling energy from a second source: the sharp differences in atmospheric temperature and pressure that normally drive winter storms. Analyzing this situation it is necessary to emphasize that Kerry A. Emanuel, a leading climate scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pointed out that little analysis had been done of whether this type of storm might become more frequent or intense as the earth warms in the coming century. There is every reason to believe that though the number of Atlantic hurricanes will stay the same or even decrease with global warming, but the intensity of the storms that do occur is likely to increase.

     There is every reason to believe that the ocean rise is a  direct consequence of global warming. Warm water expands, just as warm air does, and the warming of the ocean is one factor behind the rise. Another is that land ice the world over is starting to melt as the climate grows warmer, dumping extra water into the ocean. It's an open secret that the ocean rose about eight inches in the last century. The rate appears to have accelerated recently, to about a foot per century, and some scientists think it will accelerate further, so that the rise between now and the end of the century could exceed three feet.So, there are indications that the problem will be exacerbated in places where land is also sinking, such as the mid-Atlantic region of the United States and southern Louisiana.

      All in all, the author of the article doesn't express his own opinion - he just plainly describes the fact and opinions of different scientists. But, I suppose, that he agrees with Kerry A. Emanuel, because he concludes the article with his words that the likely effect is that coastal flooding on a scale that once happened only once or twice per century — the scale of Sandy, in other words — will become much more commonplace within the coming decades. So, there is a reason for the USA to build their houses as far back from the beach and as high up as they do, according to Dr. Emanuel words, because sea-level rise is putting their built structures closer to the water line, in effect.

     As for me,  I think that Sandy (as well as the Russian heat wave and Pakistani floods of 2010) is somehow connected with global warming, The environment changed greatly in the last century which led to the increase of different hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunami. And as far as I know, all these climate changes are results of global warming. And the global warming, in its turn, is the result of scientific and technological progress. So, everything has a connection and now we pay the price for the increased human activity. It's hard for me to predict the course of events in future, but I know that if we do not want another "Ice Age" we should stop destroyng the planet (which is also our home by the way).