After October’s Hurricane Sandy, the popular media widely publicized the relationship between climate change and the devastating storm, but some skeptics questioned the science and criticized the media hype. However, USGS research oceanographer Peter Howd has made great strides in actually quantifying the relationship between tropical storms and a warmer planet. Speaking at Friday’s Log Lunch, Howd explained his finding that sea level has not only been rising, it has been rising at an increasing rate! The storm surge from Hurricane Sandy was 30 feet in New York City, but had it not been for sea level rise, the surge would have been one to two feet lower and the subway system would not have flooded. While Howd strongly supports climate change action, he also supports disaster mitigation. In particular, Howd believes that federal and state subsidized disaster insurance create bad risk incentives for homebuyers and developers on the coast. Howd graduated from Williams in 1979 with degrees in economics and geoscience.
Peter Howd ’79
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