A rollercoaster that once sat on the Funtown Pier in Seaside Heights, N.J., rests in the ocean on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012 after the pier was washed away by superstorm Sandy.; Credit: Julio Cortez/AP

When Hurricane Sandy swept up the eastern seaboard in 2012, it left a trail of damage from Florida to Maine. Subways were inundated in New York City. Hurricane-force winds tore across New Jersey. Blizzard conditions walloped Appalachia.

The hurricane — also known as Superstorm Sandy — caused an estimated $70 billion in damages in the U.S., mostly from flooding. And while scientists have long believed that some of the carnage was attributable to a warming climate, it's been unclear just how much of a role human-caused warming played in the storm's impacts. New research, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, puts a dollar amount on some of those damages and it's a startling figure.

Using flood maps and sea-level rise measurements, researchers found that human-induced sea-level rise caused an estimated $8 billion in excess flooding damage during Hurricane Sandy and affected an additional 70,000 people.

"I often hear people say when we're trying to help them adapt to increasing coastal flooding, 'Well, it's not going to happen in my lifetime, the sea-level rise won't happen in my lifetime,'" said Philip Orton, a co-author of the study from the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. "But it's already happening to people. It's already here."

Sea levels at the tip of Manhattan have risen about 8 inches since 1950, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Estimates range for how much additional sea-level rise is likely to occur, but on average, the expectation is that by mid-century water levels could rise by more than a foot in New York City, compared to the year 2000.

In worst case scenarios, in which humanity does not significantly cut its climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions and the world's ice sheets rapidly melt, sea levels could rise by more than 6 feet by the end of the century, putting hundreds of millions of people at risk worldwide.

Higher water levels mean more areas are susceptible to flooding, storm surge and other problems associated with hurricanes, as well as more chronic flooding from high tides.

The Biden administration has made addressing climate change one of its top priorities. It's proposed a major reconfiguration of the nation's energy and transportation sectors to cut the country's outsized contribution to global warming, with the goal of making the U.S. carbon neutral by the year 2050. Accomplishing that feat will require major federal investments and likely bipartisan support. It's unclear if the administration will be able to procure the latter.

The new study, which joins a growing body of broader attribution science, aims to quantify the cost of inaction and business as usual. Similar studies found that climate change fueled the strength of Hurricane Harvey, increased the risk of Australia's recent unprecedented fire season and contributed to a record-breaking heatwave in Europe.

Scientists have debated whether Hurricane Sandy was made more intense by a warming climate, but it's difficult to know. Generally, there's agreement in the scientific community that hotter global temperatures and warmer ocean waters will lead to more rapid intensification of hurricanes.

Quantifying exactly how much those climatic differences affected a storm like Sandy is difficult. That's why Orton and the team of researchers focused their efforts on sea-level rise, where there's a bevvy of good data. They used that data to model the impacts of Hurricane Sandy in a world without climate change and found the estimated $8 billion difference.

"Increasingly we have the tools to simulate these events and study and quantify the impact of climate change on people's lives," Orton said. "People's lives were dramatically changed by Hurricane Sandy and a lot of them don't realize it had to do with climate change at all."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

The American musician and storyteller spoke with Eleanor Wachtel about her book All the Things I Lost in the Flood.

Durham : Duke University Press, [2023]

A new report from Climate Central finds that most of the overflow was caused by coastal flooding, which was made worse by rising sea levels.

The winds and waves of Hurricane Sandy spilled enough sewage to match BP's oil spill more than 50 times over.

Guest blogger Darci Palmquist of U.S. Fish & Wildlife explains the power of nature-based solutions in the aftermath of a massive hurricane.

The wave glider created by Iquid Robotics has passed quite a test for robustness. It coasted through the superstorm and provided real time weather data nonstop.

I'm hunkered down in Brooklyn waiting for Hurricane Sandy to pass. Curious about what is happening nearby, I'm looking for photos of the flooding. Here's what I've found so far.

These 5 gardens lost ancient and historic trees, and are in need of donations and volunteers to recover from Hurricane Sandy.

Since New York City's foundation in the early 17th century, the lower tip of Manhattan has been at the heart of metropolitan life - despite its vulnerability to flooding from the harbour. Two possible links between global warming and the damage wrought by Sandy are the raised sea levels which make it easier for the coast to flood, and warm air in the Atlantic Ocean increasing the fierceness of the storm.

Though only 35 weeks pregnant, Christine Schleppy, 34, began having contractions at her home in Skillman, New Jersey just residents were warned to seek shelter and stay indoors.

Greedy landlords and hotel owners looking to make a quick buck from the thousands without power or displaced by Hurricane Sandy were exploiting people's desperation by demanding outrageous prices for a shelter. As of yesterday morning Craigslist was full of posts for costly rooms, with one ad promising people the luxury of a single bedroom apartment with electricity for a 'mere' $700 per night.

Researchers have found that Sandy's Integrated Kinetic Energy index, or IKE, which quantifies the power of a hurricane based on how far out tropical-storm force winds extend from the center, ranked second only to Hurricane Isabel in 2003.

Chris Christie attacked Texas Senator Ted Cruz for voting against a $50 billion Hurricane Sandy relief package, saying he used 'reprehensible lies' to defend voting against a bill for 'political gain'.

A look at Staten Island one year after the storm.