From “Disaster Aversion,” written by Rivka Galchen and published by the Atlantic in 2009:

Our decades of heedlessly dumping CO2 into the atmosphere have proved to be the largest (and, for what it’s worth, least intentional) weather-modification experiment ever imagined. Among the unanticipated progeny of this unstewarded project are superhurricanes: stronger, more destructive, premium-fueled by warmer sea-surface temperatures. We’re considerably past the point of deciding whether or not to steal fire from the gods.

Fascinating piece.

So, just to make sure that EVERYONE gets Mother Nature’s global warming message, here comes another storm for next week – and this time, everyone’s gonna get it. From the National Weather Service:

POTENTIAL FOR NOR’EASTER ALONG THE ATLANTIC COAST NEXT WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY…

PRELIMINARY UPDATE…

USED AN EVEN BLEND OF THE 00Z/02 ECMWF AND ECENS MEAN TO UPDATE THE PRELIMINARY FRONTS AND PRESSURES FOR DAYS 3 THROUGH 7. THE GLOBAL NUMERICAL MODELS SUGGEST NO REST FOR THE WEARY ACROSS THE UNITED STATES, WITH A CONTINUED HIGH AMPLITUDE FLOW AND SUPPRESSED POLAR JET ALLOWING FOR SHARP BAROCLINICITY, WINTRY PRECIPITATION
PRODUCTION, AND THE POSSIBILITY OF ANOTHER SLOW-MOVING CYCLONE ALONG THE MID ATLANTIC AND NORTHEAST COASTS. THE EAST COAST SYSTEM WOULD BE A MORE TYPICAL NOR’EASTER, WITH THE SAME SET OF GUIDANCE SUPPORTING ITS GENESIS AT DAYS 5 AND 6 AS WITH THIS WEEK’S SPRAWLING HYBRID STORM: THE ECMWF, ECENS MEAN, GEFS MEAN, GEM
GLOBAL, AND CANADIAN ENSEMBLE MEANS. THE POSITION OF THE SURFACE HIGH TO THE NORTH WILL, AS ALWAYS, BE CRITICAL TO LOCATION OF THE RAIN-SNOW LINE. ANY SYSTEM THAT PRODUCES SIGNIFICANT WIND AND PRECIPITATION IN THE MID ATLANTIC AND NORTHEAST IS OF NOTE IN LIGHT OF THE CONTINUED RECOVERY FROM SANDY AND ITS POST-TROPICAL
TRANSFORMATION.

UNLIKE EARLIER THIS WEEK, THE ENTIRE NATION IS VULNERABLE TO HAZARDOUS WEATHER THIS FORECAST, WITH A FOCUSED, ENERGETIC POLAR FRONT EXTENDING FROM THE NORTHERN INTERMOUNTAIN REGION TO THE CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI AND OHIO VALLEYS DURING THE SECOND HALF OF THE PERIOD. FURTHERMORE, AN ARCTIC HIGH IS LIKELY TO BUILD INTO THE NORTHERN ROCKIES BY DAY 7, WITH ITS OWN ATTENDANT UPSLOPE SNOWS AND LOW TEMPERATURES.

I didn’t realize until last night just how bad it was in Staten Island. My heart goes out to these folks:

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They should move everything back at least a half-mile. But since rich people own the beachfront, they’ll get to build in the same places again:

LONG BEACH TOWNSHIP, N.J. -Some environmentalists say New Jersey should consider not rebuilding everything lost to Superstorm Sandy.

U.S. Geological Survey scientist Jeffress Williams says that rising sea levels and changing weather patterns make it likely that the coast will be hit by more frequent destructive storms.

He and other shoreline advocates say officials should consider restricting development to reduce the harm storms can do. They suggest relocating homes and businesses farther from the ocean, building more seawalls and keeping sand dunes high.

NASA scientists warned about hurricane danger to New York:

Even as we act immediately to curtail short term vulnerability, every exposed coastal city needs a risk assessment that takes global warming scenarios into account…Scientists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York have been studying that city’s vulnerability to hurricane impacts in a changing world, and calculated that with 1.5 feet of sea level rise, a worst-case-scenario Category 3 hurricane could submerge “the Rockaways, Coney Island, much of southern Brooklyn and Queens, portions of Long Island City, Astoria, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens, lower Manhattan, and eastern Staten Island from Great Kills Harbor north to the Verrazano Bridge.” (Pause and think about that for a second.)

While Sandy was a Category 1 for wind, it was a Category 3 for storm surge.