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10 W e a t h e r i n g When the northeaster of 1992 hit, powerful winds pushed the waters of Lower New York Bay into the cul-de-sac created by western Long Island and New Jersey, forcing them to back up and flood shoreline communities. It was December 11, a night of astronomical significance as the earth, moon, sun, and planets lined up in a phenomenon known as Syzygy. Just two nights before , I had witnessed a spectacular lunar eclipse while crossing Sheepshead Bay on the wooden footbridge: the huge orb of the moon hung low in a clear black sky, the shadow of the earth projected on it, slowly swallowing the moon. On the day of December 10, the weather shifted, bringing rain and warm temperatures and high winds. That night, the wind grew so fierce it shook our house and tore off pieces of siding, which crashed down to our driveway with a loud metallic crackling, rousing my family out of bed. Still, we dismissed it as just another winter storm. The next morning, when we stepped outside, we were flabbergasted to see the ocean pouring over the esplanade wall, tossing huge boulders onto the street like beach balls, and coursing down the street like a river. It was white and wild and seething. It roared and hissed, pounding away at the sea wall. Water was pouring in everywhere: it sloshed over the Sheepshead Bay footbridge and overflowed into adjacent streets; it poured over sidewalks and lawns, and slithered down sloping driveways; and as the tide rose, the flood waters rose—one, two, three, four feet—stranding cars and pedestrians, inundating basements and garages. Homeowners stood on their stoops unable to go farther because water was lapping over their front steps. The sands of Brighton Beach and Coney Island disappeared under the waves that frothed and foamed under the boardwalk. The winds howled, ripping off roofs and branches, conspiring with the sea to pound the shore and bring piers and houses crashing down. Seawalls began to crumble and give way before the ocean’s onslaught. Several high tides came and went before the storm abated. Our house was spared but many others were flooded, wherever the water gathered and pooled. The seawall that protected our community held, but huge chunks had been torn away, and the esplanade buckled and gaped. The worst fear of our community—that the waters of Sheepshead Bay and the Lower New York Bay would unite, drowning Coney Island—did not materialize. Other communities did not fare so well. Surveying the damage, I found myself awed and sobered by our encounter with a nature that is powerful and indifferent to human life. A biblical passage came to my mind about building homes on sand. The winter of 1992–93 brought three northeasters pounding the Atlantic Coast. Northeasters are common in winter, deriving their energy from the jet stream, a west-to-east current of air that sends a high-pressure system colliding with a more southerly low-pressure system, generating a classic cyclone of counterclockwise winds. Over the last several decades, the jet stream has shifted its winter path over North America. It used to follow a shallow arc across the continent; now, it traces an S-curve that dips into the South, drawing up warm moist air into the Northeast and eastern Canada. The result of this shift is more severe winter storms, as the continual feeding of warm air from the south intensifies and often prolongs the storm system. It is not clear whether the shift is due to global warming or natural causes such as a cyclical change in ocean currents. Causes of climate change are debatable, but effects are undisputed: record rains and snowfalls, hurricane-force winds and monstrous waves, coastal flooding and erosion.1 There is no question that the world is warmer than it was during the deep freeze of the last ice age, presumably ended over ten thousand years ago— although some scientists argue we are now in the early stages of a new glaciation . Twenty-two thousand years ago, in the depths of the last Ice Age, the world was nine degrees Fahrenheit colder than now and the sea level 350 feet lower along the Atlantic Coast. By twelve thousand years ago, the sea level had risen to just one hundred feet below the present level, and by six thousand years ago it reached its present level. Slowly, steadily over the millennia...

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