Earlier this year, the journal Nature Climate Change published a paper that measures hurricane behavior in our warming world. The study was as innovative as it was prescient. Combining models to simulate thousands of hurricanes in likely future climates, the authors discovered that New York City, their test case, was at risk. And increasingly so.
The city's most severe storm flooding events historically have been quite rare. According to the paper, hurricane storm surge -- roiling coastal waters driven inland which are responsible for most of the devastation and destruction during storms -- can, in New York City, reach the exceptional height of about six feet once every century, and 10 feet once every 500 years. But as the Earth warms and sea levels rise, the study found, over the next few generations these extreme swells could batter New York Harbor as often as once every 3 years and 25 years, respectively.
See full Article: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/in-all-probability-climate-change-and-the-risk-of-more-storms-like-sandy/265402/
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