Extreme Weather: The End is Near?

Hurricane Sandy, October 2012

Climate change, usually thought of as a long-term challenge, is already beginning to have an effect on global weather patterns. Over the past few years, extreme weather events have become much more frequent, so much so that it is clear that global warming is having an effect. The best example of this is Hurricane Sandy, which made headlines around the world as an extreme weather even on an unprecedented scale. Besides the sheer size of the storm, Sandy was a wake-up call about climate change because it hit hardest in the heart of the United States. The densely populated cities on the northeast coast of America seemed completely unprepared, with power loss and lack of supplies widespread in the days and weeks after the storm. The total cost of the storm was estimated to be $65.6 billion, far more than what adequate preparation measures (power grid protection, supply trucks, etc.) would have cost. Whether this says more about the effects of climate change or the incompetency of local governments is unclear, but what is certain is that the destruction of extreme weather is far from over.

Tsunami hitting coast of Japan, March 2011

Another extreme weather event that gained worldwide attention was the tsunami that hit Japan in March of 2011. After being generated by an offshore earthquake, the tsunami flooded the Japanese coast and caused a major disaster when multiple nuclear power plants lost power. Large and densely populated areas had to be evacuated, and the environmental effects are still being dealt with today. Like Hurricane Sandy, the Fukushima disaster revealed not only the increasing danger posed by extreme weather but also the frailty of modern infrastructure. Ironically, it had more of an effect on anti-nuclear public opinion than it did on anti-hydrocarbon opinions, even though the former is a potential solution to climate change and the latter its principal cause.

Map of droughts in the US, July 2012

Despite being less dramatic than a hurricane or a tsunami, the drought that hit the US in the summer of 2012 is perhaps the most troubling weather event in recent years. With moisture levels lower than they have been in decades, this drought caused 1,692 countries across 36 states to be declared natural disaster areas and affected an estimated 80% of US farmland. We often think of the Great Plains as the "bread basket" of America, providing us with all the food we could ever eat. But if global warming continues to produce record-breaking summers like that of 2012, these plains may soon turn to deserts. Combined with farming practices that rely on fossil-fuel powered machines and a wide array of synthetic chemicals, this has serious implications on our future food production capacity. On the bright side, future droughts could prove to be a final solution to a widespread American health problem: obesity.