UN climate scientist: Sandy no coincidence

Desdemona Despair

By KARL RITTER, with contributions from AP Environment Writer Michael Casey
27 November 2012

DOHA, Qatar (AP) – Though it’s tricky to link a single weather event to climate change, Hurricane Sandy was “probably not a coincidence” but an example of the extreme weather events that are likely to strike the U.S. more often as the world gets warmer, the U.N. climate panel’s No. 2 scientist said Tuesday.

Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, the vice chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, predicted that as stronger and more frequent heat waves and storms become part of life, people will stop asking whether global warming played a role.

“The new question should probably progressively become: Is it possible that climate warming has not influenced this particular event?” he told The Associated Press in an interview on the sidelines of U.N. climate negotiations in Qatar.

Ypersele’s remarks come as global warming has re-emerged as an issue in Washington following the devastating superstorm — a rarity for the U.S. Northeast — and an election that led to Democratic gains.

After years of disagreement, climate scientists and hurricane experts have concluded that as the climate warms, there will be fewer total hurricanes. But those storms that do develop will be stronger and wetter.

It is not correct to say Sandy was caused by global warming, but “the damage caused by Sandy was worse because of sea level rise,” said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer. He said the sea level in New York City is a foot higher than a century ago because of man-made climate change.

On the second day of a two-week conference in the Qatari capital of Doha, the talks fell back to the bickering between rich and poor countries that has marked the negotiations since they started two decades ago. At the heart of the discord is how to divide the burden of cutting emissions of heat-trapping gases, including carbon dioxide.

Such emissions, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, have increased by 20 percent since 2000, according to a U.N. report released last week.

Van Ypersele (vahn EE-purr-say-luh) said the slow pace of the talks was “frustrating” and that negotiators seem more concerned with protecting national interests than studying the science that prompted the negotiations.

“I would say please read our reports a little more. And maybe that would help to give a sense of urgency that is lacking,” he said.

Marlene Moses, the head of a coalition of island nations that view the rising sea levels as an existential threat, said that was good advice.

“These are the kind of people that it is probably a good idea to listen to,” she said. “It is very much in the interest of small islands to focus on the science, which is why we have always based our positions on the latest research and why here we are calling for dramatically higher ambition.” […]

UN climate scientist: Sandy no coincidence