Some meteorologists believe there is a clear relationship between Frankenstorm and reduced Arctic sea ice caused by human-driven climate change. In plainer reductionist language, the proponents of climate-change denial, which are largely collected under the Republican umbrella, are not wholly responsible but are almost certainly partly responsible for the Hurricane Sandy catastrophe now unfolding.

Here is an opinion from Jennifer Francis of Rutgers, as passed along in a 10.28 N.Y. Times piece by Dot Earth‘s Andrew Revkin:

“It could very well be that general warming along with high sea-surface temperatures have lengthened the tropical storm season, making it more likely that a Sandy could form, travel so far north, and have an opportunity to interact with a deep jet-stream trough associated with the strong block, which is steering it westward into the mid-Atlantic,” Francis writes.

“While it’s impossible to say how this scenario might have unfolded if sea-ice had been as extensive as it was in the 1980s, the situation at hand is completely consistent with what I’d expect to see happen more often as a result of unabated warming and especially the amplification of that warming in the Arctic. Losing ice, reducing the poleward temperature gradient, and warming the entire climate system should contribute to increasing the likelihood of anomalous storms.”