Oh, right - like we've never had major hurricanes before. The only thing that made this one worse was the path it took toward large cities - had the center made landfall over a sparsely populated area it wouldn't have even been discussed. The system also absorbed a Nor'easter that happened to be in its path, making it larger - was this also caused by "climate change"?
If there really is climate change, this certainly isn't an argument that it is exists. So embarrassingly nonsensical.
The ingredients along with Sandy were a deep upper trough with a strong shortwave moving along it. That enabled an upper low to cut off and absorb Sandy. Sandy hit southern Jersey, far from the worst surge. The surge was bad because of the large wind field like you say. The winds were even strong on top of Mount Washington.
The same strong extratropical transitions happens almost every year, Even in 2012 there was already a storm almost as strong as Sandy, hit Newfoundland. A comparative storm was Hazel 1954. Different path but similar dynamics.