Clear to Mostly Cloudy in Moments
The atmospheric patterns which give Florida its pleasant weather also used to provide it with adequate rainfall to keep skiable lakes and the aquifer topped off nicely during every month of the year.
Overdevelopment (which I refer to as urban sprawl), global warming and the El Niño effect have changed that in recent years. In fact, when I moved to Florida two decades ago, we enjoyed regular afternoon downpours during 9 months of the year or more. Residents, including this author, almost could set our clocks to the weather. If the time was 3PM, cloud fronts were due to begin building over the Atlantic Coast and move westward. If it was 5PM and the cable television or electrical service had not flickered, we were due for at least a brownout at any moment.
We called these storms the daily gully washers. During the drought-stricken years we have experienced over the last decade, Florida’s entire weather pattern has changed. Thankfully, the summer of 2008 has moved our accumulations back into the plus column. However, I remember with perfect clarity what local meteorologists used to say during dry spells, “When rain comes, it will wash all the surface air pollution and smog out to sea.”
That’s all well and good for short-term respiratory needs but what does the Atlantic Ocean do with the pollution which we tolerate until the rain comes? Might this airborne soup contain any inert substances which are activated by salt water? Can sea life tolerate the pollution as well as people do?
The answers to these questions are all bad, I’m afraid, and at the top of the list is carbon. If Florida were not a peninsula with a pair of prevailing wind patterns providing it the luxury of fresh air, its cities would be as smoggy as California’s. Worse still, by effectively holding our breath until Mother Nature rids us of our pollution problem, we are performing the planetary equivalent of sweeping the problem under someone else’s carpet.
The carbon and other nasty, corrosive substances have to go somewhere, right?
In the third and fourth installments of this series, I will summarize the effect for you and provide the answer to the automobile riddle. Here’s a hint. It relates to the battery.
Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line
Corbett Kroehler
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