Climate Change And The Blizzard: Nor'easters More Fierce With Global Warming, Scientists Say
Michael Mann, a climatologist who directs the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, compared a major storm like Nemo -- or Hurricane Irene or Superstorm Sandy, for that matter -- to a basketball slam-dunk with a lower net.Climate Astrology: Blizzard blamed on global warming?! Is there any weather event that is inconsistent with global warming? -- Climate Depot Round up | Climate Depot
"If you take the basketball court and raise it a foot, you're going to see more slam-dunks," Mann said. "Not every dunk is due to raising the floor, but you'll start seeing them happen more often then they ought to."
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Michael Oppenheimer, a climate change expert at Princeton University, said global warming is increasing extreme storms. "Storms like this tend to be heavier than they used to be," he told HuffPost. "That's a fact."
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In fact, Jeff Masters, a climatologist and founder of Weather Underground, noted that the number of intense nor'easters hasn't increased over the last three or four decades. A warmer climate, he explained, can decrease the length of the snowy season, and therefore the time window for nor'easters.
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Penn State's Mann also likes to use baseball metaphors when describing climate's influence on major storms -- "home runs," he calls them. "What we're seeing now with climate change is weather on steroids."
UN IPCC's Michael Oppenheimer on his unused sled in 2000: 'Oppenheimer even had a tear-jerking personal angle on the 'absence of snow' in modern winters omichael@princeton.edu -- NYT quoted 'Oppenheimer on the pathetic spectacle of the unused sled in his stairwell, symbol of a warming world: 'I bought a sled in '96 for my daughter,' said Oppenheimer, a scientist at the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund. 'It's been sitting in the stairwell, and hasn't been used. I used to go sledding all the time. It's one of my most vivid and pleasant memories as a kid, hauling the sled out to Cunningham Park in Queens.'
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