Mon
Jun 16 2008
01:19 pm
What's All This Cool Weather Stuff, Anyhow*?
By: Factchecker

When I argue with denialists about Global Warming, they often like to point to recent weather events (usually quite local) that aren't so "warm," however meaningless such weather is to climate change. One thing I like to point out is that the land mass of the U.S. is so small relative to the entire earth, that it's at least theoretically possible for us to experience cooling over the entire country while most of the planet on average continues to heat. Mostly, this is to make a point, as it does seem unlikely this would actually occur (--though there is a theory that much of the U.S. and Europe can expect some short term cooling as a byproduct to climate change, especially if the Atlantic Conveyor breaks down).

Now the data is in and it shows that much of the country is indeed a tiny island of cooling on a vastly warming planet.

If you still wonder why it's so cool, keep in mind that we are in the midst of the two cyclic cooling events of La Nina and the 11 year solar cycle minimum. So there is that double whammy going on.

Mind you, I'm not complaining about our recent weather. Many mornings it's been downright cool and the projected high for Tuesday and Wednesday is 79 degrees. Nice!

Bonus question I don't have the slightest answer for: Where are the 'skeeters? I sat out in the hammock for a couple hours yesterday and there was nary a one. All of the usual bad areas around our house have been pretty quiet the whole season, so far. Is it an effect of the the lingering drought? Anyway, I ain't complaining.

*Title borrowed from this guy.

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Somebody's picture

Don't know where you are,

Submitted by Somebody on Mon, 2008/06/16 - 4:41pm.

Don't know where you are, but ...

Normal high for Knoxville this time of year: 84F.
Recorded high esterday: 88F.
Current temperature: 89F.
Predicted high for tomorrow and the next day: 81F.

Relevance to global warming: nil.

The concept of global warming is that the overall average temperature of the entire planet's atmosphere has increased and will continue to increase by a few degrees over a time period measured in decades and centuries. The reason anyone should give a hoot about that is because that slight increase over time can cause significant changes in weather patterns resulting in "climate change."

Climate change is the kicker that people should give a direct hoot about. Climate change means that your local area could become significantly cooler, or significantly warmer, or wetter or drier, and weather patterns could become more volatile, unpredicatble, and damaging to property, crops, wildlife, etc. The fact that someone has observed their local conditions trending cooler than normal could actually be a result of climate change, which is a result of global warming.

Really, though, using short term observations to comment on climate change is about like randomly picking a single car on I-40, measuring its speed for half a second, and using that to make declarations about the worldwide price of crude oil.

Also, I've had no shortage of mosquitos where I live.

Factchecker's picture

No argument

Submitted by Factchecker on Mon, 2008/06/16 - 8:17pm.

You're right. Many of your points I was trying to make, however not so directly. Indeed, GW doesn't mean warmer everywhere all the time. It means weirder, more extreme, more disruptive, more of the time. Which is worse than warmer. (Though still overall warming too.)

I'm in Knoxville. There definitely are fewer mosquitos this year in all of the places I've been. Not zero like yesterday seemed to have, but fewer. I have gotten some nasty bites--my wife even more, but it's not nearly as bad as the last few years. Of course summer is really yet to come, and the drought could have disrupted the breeding, warm winter notwithstanding. I did get a bite tonight, though.

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