Twenty-First Century New York Forecast: Floods, Heat, Bugs

Even Noah would have been impressed.

For two days this week, New York City endured the lashings of one of the worst storms in recent history, a northeaster that flooded streets, downed power lines and dumped nearly eight inches of rain on Central Park. With its olive-sized raindrops, it had the feel of some Biblical melodrama, re-enacted for our environmental, if not spiritual, edification.

In Brooklyn, the Gowanus Canal topped its banks, sending cold, dark water pouring into apartments. In Queens, some residents were forced to paddle the streets in boats. Every borough had its stories, and with them came the nagging suspicion that some god of global warming had finally spoken.

Michael Oppenheimer, a geosciences professor at Princeton University and a leading thinker on climate change, saw the storm as a clear portent.

“You can really never tie one particular event directly to global warming in a cause-and-effect sense,” he said. “On the other hand, this is exactly the type of event that we’d expect to see more of in the future—this kind of gully-washing, incredibly intense downpour.”

“The storm was kind of a preview of things to come,” he concluded.

more from the NY Observer