ACCUWeather

TEDxPSU – Michael Mann – A Look Into Our Climate: Past To Present To Future

December 13, 2012; 9:00 AM

Michael Mann: Future Extremes Could Be Worse Than Sandy, Dust Bowl

After Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast, impacting millions of people, interest in climate change has exploded. Even New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg voiced his concern.

READ: Global Warming: Skeptic or Believer?

“We cannot solve the problems associated with climate change alone here in New York City, but I think it’s fair to say we can lead the way,” Bloomberg said during a speech in early December.

AccuWeather.com’s Evan Myers interviewed a Penn State climate scientist, Dr. Michael Mann, about what type of impacts the U.S. will likely see due to climate change. During the interview, Dr. Michael Mann disputed that climate change caused Sandy. However, Mann did say that climate change affects how the storms impact the coast.

Mann said that people can’t say that the storm was “literally caused by climate change but we can look at some of the factors that influenced the hurricane… One is the record coastal surge of more than 13 feet at New York City… The oceans in that part of the world are a foot or a little bit more than a foot higher than they were a century ago because of global sea level rise, in large part because of the warming of the ocean.”

WATCH: See part one of AccuWeather.com’s interview with Michael Mann

Some media outlets have partially credited Obama’s win to Sandy but Mann hesitated about making climate change a political issue. The scientist said that the infamous “climate change debate” is no longer a debate — climate change is real.

“National [science] academies of all the industrial nations have weighed in with the same conclusion,” Mann said. Climate change is a threat.

After Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast, impacting millions of people, interest in climate change has exploded, including concern from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“We cannot solve the problems associated with climate change alone here in New York City, but I think it’s fair to say we can lead the way,” Bloomberg said during a speech in early December.

You can read more about Michael Mann and his research about climate change at his website, http://michaelmann.net. Mann’s latest book is The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines.