[audio:http://wamcradio.org/EarthWise/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/EW-03-06-14-Cold-Weather-Warm-Climate.mp3|titles=EW 03-06-14 Cold Weather Warm Climate]
For pretty much everyone living east of the Mississippi River, this winter has been cold, snowy, and icy. We’ve all heard about the Polar Vortex and many of us have spent untold hours with our shovels and snow blowers. All in all, it seems like global warming has gone on vacation.
Unfortunately, for the planet as a whole, this isn’t at all the case. As a matter of fact, this past January was the fourth-warmest January on record. It was also the 347th consecutive month with temperatures above the 20th century average.
For many Americans, this has actually been an unusually warm winter. Californians have experienced temperatures 10 or more degrees above normal in some places, along with a historic drought. Temperatures in Alaska were almost 15 degrees above normal in January. Many places around the world were unusually warm in January, including Brazil, southern Africa, most of Europe, large parts of China, and most of Australia.
We generally don’t experience climate; we experience weather. There is no doubt that our weather and indeed that of many places around the world has been topsy-turvy in recent times. Unusual patterns in the jet stream have led to both historic blasts of cold air in the East as well as strangely warm temperatures in the West.
Extreme weather events of many sorts are likely to be increasingly common in our changing climate. We would be greatly mistaken to think that our recent experience with cold and snowy weather indicates that the earth’s climate is not continuing to warm.
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Freezing January for Easterners Was Not Felt Round the World
Photo, taken on January 2, 2014, courtesy of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center via Flickr.
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Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. Support for Earth Wise comes from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY.