Climate change made Hurricane Sandy significantly more costly – $8 billion more, study says
CBSN
In 2012, Hurricane Sandy was about as close to a worst-case scenario storm for the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut area as one could imagine. With a storm surge of 9 feet inundating highly populated areas and valuable real estate, it was the fourth costliest hurricane in U.S. history, causing nearly $63 billion in damage.
Now, in a first-of-its-kind study published in the journal Nature, a team of researchers has quantified just how much more the storm cost due to higher sea levels from human-caused climate change. The study found that the damage increased by $8.1 billion — or 13% of the total cost — compared to what it would have been in a world without climate change. The study also found that climate change led to about 71,000 additional people being impacted by the flooding. "The human impact of climate change is clear and costly," said study co-author Daniel Gilford, a postdoctoral associate at Rutgers University and climate scientist at Climate Central.A cybercriminal group claims it stole personal data belonging to more than 500 million Ticketmaster customers. Although the event ticketing service, owned by Live Nation Entertainment, hasn't confirmed the attack, security experts warn that it could put users of the platform at risk for a range of scams.
Two climbers were waiting to be rescued near the peak of Denali, a colossal mountain that towers over miles of vast tundra in southern Alaska, officials said Wednesday. Originally part of a three-person team that became stranded near the top of the mountain, the climbers put out a distress call more than 30 hours earlier suggesting they were hypothermic and unable to descend on their own, according to the National Park Service.