Although climate change did not directly cause Hurricane Sandy, many in the scientific community agree that it played a significant role in the storm’s strength and destructiveness. “Hurricanes and tropical storms would occur with or without global warming. But many climate models suggest that such storms will become more intense as the planet warms,” Pennsylvania State University climatologist Michael Mann told the Huffington Post . One prevailing theory about why Sandy was so particularly destructive is that instead of turning out toward the ocean on its way north, as hurricanes usually do, Sandy turned inland and battered the eastern seaboard. Scientists are pointing to warmer-than-usual weather over Greenland, where record breaking glacier melt was observed this year. The warmer weather created an area of high-pressure which effectively ‘blocked’ the north Atlantic and forced Hurricane Sandy inland instead of out to sea.  Another theory from 1999 Goldman Prize r