Hurricane Sandy is remarkable in several respects. It is the most powerful storm ever to hit the NE States. It had the largest size prior to hitting landfall of any storm at one thousand miles in diameter. It also had the lowest barometric pressure when it hit landfall in New Jersey. It is also the first time that a tropical storm merged with an artic low pressure system. Thus, the storm is affecting weather all the way from South Carolina to Canada. This storm will remain in place for days due to an extremely large high pressure system to the east
Hurricane Sandy by National Weather Service
This strange merger of low pressure systems has completely disrupted the Jet Stream in the Northern Hemisphere. Because this kind of merger has never happened before, there is no way of telling what will happen next. But it this disruption of the Jet Stream is almost certain to create unusual weather patterns for the rest of the winter all over the Northern Hemisphere.
The Jet Stream is too far north in the western US and too far south in the eastern US
Jet Stream by National Weather Service
This record storm follows on the heels of a record drought this past summer. But the most remarkable aspect of this storm is the lack of acknowledgement by the talking heads of the corporate media that this record storm and the record drought this past summer are both related to global warming.
According to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, Hurricane Sandy was mentioned in 94 stories on major networks in the past 2 days. Not one mentioned global warming or climate change. A study by mediamatters.org concluded that coverage of climate change by the major networks fell 90% between 2009 and 2011 -- despite many record weather events during that time.
Corporate Media by David Spring
Many computer models have predicted for more than 20 years that as we heat up the planet, we will see more extreme weather, including record storms and record droughts. It is similar to heating up a pot of water and watching the bubbles rise faster. With skyrocketing greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide being increasingly emitted into the atmosphere, this extreme weather is certain to get much worse and much more common in coming years. We have only seen a two degree rise in temperature. Computer models predict a 7 to 10 degree temperature rise in coming years. Thus future storms will likely be several times worse than Hurricane Sandy -- and several times worse than Hurricane Katrina.
CO2 concentration is currently approaching 400 ppm
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
3
3
2
