The Coastal Monitor: Vol. 10 No. 1

New Year’s Day has always been, for me, a time to reflect and project into the near future. Nature’s influence on us all certainly tops my listing with several environmental concerns. For example, the frequency and intensity of hurricanes to Long Island. A decade has passed since Superstorm Sandy re-opened the “Old Inlet” on Long Island which now has mostly naturally closed. So, the new year immediately prompts me to assess the previous year’s Hurricane Ian, a Category 4 system, with winds exceeding 150 mph, which had considerable impact in Florida, and then proceeded north resulting in over 2 inches of precipitation to Long Island. A frontpage article in the New York Times, National Section, December 5, 2022, “Population Growth Makes Hurricanes More Costly”; which has been an increasing and known economic fact in assessing hurricane impacts. Over the past 123 years there has not been any significant increasing trends in the numbers of storms; in hurricane intensity; or any increase in water content. It is purposely plain and simple, that more people and more infrastructure along the coastline of the US, are all directly in harm’s way. This dramatically increased concentration in human population has contributed to a commensurate economic storm damage level in every case. Crediting hurricane damages solely to “climate change” is a continuously misguided premise