Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Last updated 11:59 a.m. PT
With six inches of snow on his lawn, and gusts of icy air out of the Fraser River rattling his house a retiree living in our "banana belt" of Sequim fired off an e-mail Tuesday, asking: "How can you possibly be pushing that (bleep) about global warming?"
He's echoing Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, a climate change denier whose grandchildren built an igloo near the U.S. Capitol after last February's multiple Washington, D.C., snowstorms, decorating it with a sign saying this was Al Gore's new home.
Inhofe was sweating in 95-degree heat come July, sticking to his guns and telling ABC News: "We're in a cycle now that all the scientists agree is going into a cooling period."
Of course, with the statesman-like language for which he is renowned, Inhofe has argued that Gore is "full of crap" and that climate change is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
The weather outside at this moment does not tell us much, other than that we should stay inside and drive only if absolutely necessary. (The Emerald City's most prominent bicycle commuter, Mayor Mike McGinn, was on four wheels Tuesday morning.)
"The difference between weather and climate is a measure of time: Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere 'behaves' over relatively long periods of time," the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. said in a recent report.
"When we talk about climate change, we talk about changes in long-term averages of daily weather," it added.
For example, some Montana stations are reporting below-zero temperatures this week. In recent years, however, the snow cover has melted earlier in the Big Sky state, springtime temperatures have risen, and runoff in streams has fallen by early summer.
"If summers seem hotter lately, then the recent climate may have changed," NASA reported. "In various parts of the world, some people have even noticed that springtime comes earlier now than it did 30 years ago -- An earlier springtime is indicative of a possible change in the climate."
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently reported that, acrss the globe, 2010 is the hottest recorded year since it began keeping world-wide temperature records. Data shows each of the five decades yielding warmer temperatures than the preceding decade.
One development is undeniable: Weather extremes are becoming commonplace.
The record-breaking snowfalls that paralyzed Washington, D.C., nine months ago were followed by record heat five months later. Across the globe, another capital -- Moscow -- sweltered for weeks in 100-degree heat and choked on smoke from forest fires.
As if she knows when it's sweeps month on local TV, Mother Nature has bashed the Pacific Northwest in late fall. Our screens get filled with salmon swimming across U.S. 101 near Shelton, the home in Seattle's Madison Valley where a woman drowned working in her basement, and miles-long Monday night traffic backups on local highways.
Three "hundred year" storms in the past decade damaged much of the recreation infrastructure in Washington's national parks and national forests. Here in the city, Mercer Street flooded where it goes under S.R. 99. An estimated 4,000 trees blew down in Vancouver's famed Stanley Park.
British Columbia has experienced hundred year -- and five hundred year -- summer fire seasons. I once camped in a cool Ponderosa Pine forest of Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park outside Kelowna. The forest burned seven years ago, sending out a firestorm that scorched a nearby suburb.
My friend in Sequim reported a temperature in the teens. Sixteen months ago, we had a 100-degree spell here, endurable perhaps only out on breezy Dungeness Spit.
We rely on the National Weather Service to predict and warn what will happen in the near future. On Monday, for instance, a low pressure area came in a lot closer off the Pacific, served up much more snow than predicted, and drew a lot of cold air down from Canada.
But it is also vital for scientists to study climate without interference by such flat-earthers as Sen. Inhofe or Rep. Jim Barton of Texas, the guy who apologized to BP.
As NASA explains it, this too will affect people around the world:
"Rising global temperatures are expected to raise sea levels, an change precipitation and other local climate conditions. Changing regional climate could alter forests, crop yields and water supplies. It could also affect human health, animals and many tyles of ecosystems."
As a Bellingham kid, I used to bundle up against cold air coming down from the Fraser River, but potential impacts of climate change send more shivers down my spine.
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