The abnormally low winter temperatures and vast accumulations of snow and ice during the winter of 2009 in North America have left many people who previously believed in the threat of global warming with understandable questions. NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has engaged in fresh research to find answers. What Dr. Martin Hoerling and NOAA his colleagues have learned is alarming to believers and skeptics alike.
They have discovered a warming hole over North America. For example:
• Northern and western sections of North America have seen the largest temperature increases over the last 50 years, with warming of up to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit in Alaska and in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Yukon in Canada. Meanwhile, the southern United States and eastern Canada have seen the least warming.
• In the United States, the Southwest has taken a one-two punch, experiencing some of the greatest warming in both winter and summer.
• Over the last 50 years, droughts have not become more frequent, contrary to prediction, but have, indeed, become more severe, as forecast.
So, what is going on here? Well, as I have reiterated several times, we must remember that the first word in global warming is global. Secondly, the atmosphere of the planet is self-regulating and tries to compensate for the ongoing and accelerating damage which we are causing.
Lastly, although we can prove beyond all scientific doubt that increases in the carbon content of our atmosphere cause average temperatures to rise and polar melting has exceeded all predictions, we remain, quite literally, in uncharted territory. In other words, the worst is yet to come but that frightening fact does not mean that we won’t continue to have cold winters or days, such as in early February, when Washington, DC saw a temperature swing of almost 70 degrees Fahrenheit from the previous day.
Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line
Corbett Kroehler
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