Extreme Weather and Climate Disruption Since Katrina

CPR's Unnatural Disaster report pointed out that current energy policies favoring fossil fuels made it "more likely that there will be disasters like Katrina in the future." It explained that global climate disruption increases temperatures thereby causing sea level rise, a big threat to the Gulf Coast, and that climate disruption models suggest a shift toward extreme weather events. Since Katrina, we have certainly seen lots of extreme weather. Perhaps most reminiscent of Katrina, on October 30, 2012, Superstorm Sandy hit much of the east coast, causing widespread flooding, especially in New York and New Jersey.[1] On February 5-6, 2010, an unusually severe snowstorm, labeled "smowmaggedon" buried Washington, D.C. Looking beyond our shores, super-typhoon Haiyan, one of the largest typhoons on record, devastated the Philippines in November of 2013. [1] See Adam Sobel, Storm Surge: Hurricane Sandy, Our Changing Climate, and Extreme Weather of the Past and Future (2014).