This week in science: Sandy

Satellite image of Superstorm Sandy taken at 10 AM EDT Tuesday. Image NASA GSFC. Click for info at Climate Progress

Did Sandy happen becuase of global climate change? Answer: It's quite possible according to one of world's leading climate science experts, Dr. Michael Mann from Penn Sate University and author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches From The Front Lines:

Climate scientists can see that climate change is playing a role in setting the context for these storms, in particular the record levels of North Atlantic ocean warmth that is available to feed these storms with energy and moisture. Some of the more robust connections we can draw: 1) a foot of sea level rise over past century contributed to a worse peak coastal surge (13ft at Battery Park in NYC) than otherwise would have been observed and (2) near-record SSTs off east coast of U.S. (some--though obviously not all---of which can be attributed to anthropogenic warming) almost certainly added energy and moisture to the storm. In fact, the increased flooding and rainfall associated w/ tropical cyclones and hurricanes due to warmer SSTs over which they are forming and traveling, is one of the most robust climate change impacts on these storms.

In short, we can't blame the existence of a single hurricane on global warming just like we can't blame a single roll of snake-eyes on loaded dice -- but we've been rolling a lot of snake-eyes lately.

• Since we have no idea which of the many, many Mitt Romneys would show up in D.C., here's another good reason not to find out: Mitt Romney's Stem Cell Position May Put Research Funding At Risk.
• Curiosity is busy checking out rocks and snapping this very cool self portrait, meanwhile Felix the skydiver should probably stay out of science policy and stick to jumping out of high altitude balloons.
• All carbon solar cells -- which, being without pollution or much in the way of catastrophic environmental damage potential, probably wouldn't fit in real well to a many Romn-eyed administration either.
• Enough about the evolution of furry ratty derarives like us or dogs, how about those featherbutts?

  A Yale-led scientific team has produced the most comprehensive family tree for birds to date, connecting all living bird species ' nearly 10,000 in total ' and revealing surprising new details about their evolutionary history and its geographic context.