What’s going on with our weather and climate?
Do we really know what climate change will do to our planet?
Deniers think it’s all a big hoax. They are quick to point to all that snow from the storm that buried the Northeast and what about the below-zero weather we had across Southwestern Pennsylvania and the chilly days in Florida this winter.
Surely this is a rebuke of the warming trend over the past several decades.
Ahead of the latest winter storm our President wrote on Truth Social a common piece of climate misinformation “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???” His comments reveal a deep misunderstanding about climate change.
An occasional visit from the Polar Vortex, a blizzard in the Northeast or a 100-degree afternoon does not determine a shift in climate. These events are weather and there is a big difference between weather and climate.
Weather is short and variable and climate has to do with long-term trends and patterns.
Climate takes decades of daily weather events to establish a long-term trend.
As the planet warms, and it certainly has over the past 30 years as evidenced by our melting glaciers and rising seas along with the increased fires, droughts and floods, it also worsens weather extremes and can destabilize the Polar Vortex causing it to wobble and distort out of shape. Instead of blowing around the Arctic it gets picked up by the Jet Stream and plunges southward.
A warmer atmosphere can also bring more snow since there is more energy and fuel just like this past week’s storm. Even with a warmer planet we will still see periods of intense cold and deep snow.
There is little doubt that greenhouse gas emissions caused by us humans are changing our climate, giving rise to the gradual increase in temperatures that have been occurring. The scientific consensus on this is comparable to the scientific consensus that smoking causes lung cancer. Scientists base their predictions using powerful computers that combine our understanding of climatic processes with climate data. Our computers today do an ever increasing job of improving our weather forecasts as evidenced by recent trends in hurricane forecasting and even this recent snowstorm that was forecast many days ahead of the event.
Another aspect of our warmer planet is the fact that the world is running out of fresh water to support human needs for food and survival. The United Nations warns that the world is entering an era of “water bankruptcy.” Human water use over the longterm has exceeded the renewable water sources and may have reached the point of no return. Rivers, lakes and aquifers are being depleted faster than they can be restored.
Simply put the world has overstretched its water use and additional factors like pollution add to the problem. Our American Southwest is included in this concern with its increase demand and lack of rains.
Wetlands often described as shock absorbers for the water cycle are disappearing.
More than one billion acres of natural wetland have been erased in the last 50 years. A CBS news report indicates that 75% of our human populations reside in countries that are water insecure.
Like the awareness of the connection of smoking and lung cancer we need to stop the denial of what we are doing to our climate and star working on solutions.
A lot of people don’t have to die before we decide to take action.