Prominent elements Republican Party and associated anti-science syndrome sufferers are gleefully (and ignorantly) making jokes about the Washington, DC, area's record snow levels, using this to confuse people about the realities of Global Warming.
The reality of Global Warming is that "warmth" isn't what all of us will feel with each moment, after all that moment is weather, and that climate disruption can foster colder weather in one place and warmth in other areas.
Yes, Washington, DC, has lots of snow while, on the other hand, Vancouver, Canada, has none.
Hmmm ... perhaps we can airlift some snow between my backyard and Vancouver.
Washington, DC, has had over 55 inches of snow, setting a record for snow levels (even while not setting records for cold temperatures for a winter -- in fact, the "most average January since 1987"). At the same time that Washingtonians are digging out from over 30 inches of snow in six days, the Winter Olympic's site has resorted to using trucks and helicopters to bring snow to competition sites as temperatures are in the balmy 40+ range Fahrenheit (some eight degrees above normal). Certainly, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded Vancouver the 2010 Winter Olympics, no one thought to have scheduled an airlift of snow between Washington, DC, and Vancouver.
Thus, there is a reality that
- The average global temperature is warming over time, with each decade warmer than its predecessor for the past 40 years. And, the hottest 11 years in modern recorded temperatures have all come since 1998.
- Each decade that passes sees an increasing proportion of temperature records on the hot, rather than cold, side.
- Warming trends are becoming evident to human activities with, for example, maple tapping season starting and ending earlier in face of warming temperatures. Similar changes are hitting, to stay with luxury products, the wine industry also. Animals are recognizing the change with, for example, bird habitats moving north with warming climate.
- Climate disruption is occurring, seen in the confluence of record-breaking snowfall in Washington, DC, with drizzly weather at the site of the Winter Olympics.
Let us be clear, no single weather event proves global
warming but
deep snow in Washington shouldn't dissuade Senator Bingaman from seeking climate legislation as
snow in Jim Inhofe's front yard doesn't prove that his deception-laden truthiness has any basis in reality (photo to right from Inhofe's front yard this week).
NOTEs.
- Recommended reading today, Joe Romm, Memo to the NY Times: We are NOT in a big freeze!
- For anyone concerned, here is a useful National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration tool for seeing global temperature anomolies. If you would take a 1 February snapshot, you would see that Russia, much of Western Europe, and the interior of the Continental United States were "unusually" cold. Canada, most of the Arctic, and much of Antarctica are atypically warm. This, by the way, highlights one of the challenges caused by climate disruption: "usual" and "typical" are growing less certain, with climate chaos increasingly disrupting traditional weather patterns.