And as we turn up the heat…

One more snowstorm like the last and we won’t have to dig out … just burrow.

Oh well, I guess there’s no need to shovel a tunnel. We’ll be fixed until spring.

Then what?

Who knows.

Here we sit on the cusp of March, nose deep in drifts, nose nipped like it’s mid January, and spring feeling a long, long way away. We’re living in a real winter wonderland – wondering where we’re going to put the next snowfall and wondering where all the water will go when (and if) it all melts away. It’s one heck of a winter we’re having.

Yeah, and I hear the jeers from the other side of the page, “What’s with your predictions now, Science Boy? Where’s your global warming now?”

Wales.

Yeah, as we’re dodging blizzard warnings and freezing our collective tuchies, across the pond in Trawsgoed, Wales, the temperature hit 68.5 degrees – the highest winter temperature ever recorded in Great Britain – in fact, it would be an unusually warm day in July for that ever chilly Welch city.

Not to mention the record drought in Australia. The Land Down Under is having its hottest summer in history.

And then there was the out-of-season typhoon in Guam...the last one of those was in 1953.

It’s just common sense to say that these are the times that try weathermen’s souls.

There is an explanation to it all, for anyone who chooses to take a moment to pay attention. In a nutshell, a persistant pattern of warming in the far north has disrupted the air circulation patterns that have prevailed over the last few millennia, sending the jet stream a-gyrating turning world-wide weather into something of a meteorological crap shoot. As far as we’re concerned, that means all that arctic air is leaking down on top of us, while our Welsh cousins are breaking out the shorts and sunglasses.

Next go-round, who knows. But odds are, we’re not going to like it.

Let’s face it. The world most of us grew up in was a pretty cozy place. Yeah, there was that flood in ’65, some nasty blizzards in ’57 and ’72, and January 1979 was cold enough, long enough to make my blood thicken at the thought of it. We had hot days in summer, cold days in winter. There were wet years and dry years; but we had a  500 -year rain we didn’t expect to need a 500-year umbrella ever again, and 100-year floods weren’t an every-other-year occurrence.

Glaciers stayed frozen. The ocean was no deeper this year than last and, for the most part, things were pretty predictable.

And it looks like they’re pretty predictable again – only now the forecast is for ever wilder weather. Unless we do something about it.

The thing is, we’re in a fix of our own making. Not a good place to be, but for the fact that we do know how to fix it. That fix won’t be fast; it won’t necessarily be easy; but the alternative is out there for everyone to see.

Don’t take my word for it. According to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, prepared under the leadership of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and released in November “The impacts of climate change are already being felt in communities across the country. More frequent and intense extreme weather and climate-related events, as well as changes in average climate conditions, are expected to continue to damage infrastructure, ecosystems, and social systems that provide essential benefits to communities… Global action to significantly cut greenhouse gas emissions can substantially reduce climate-related risks and increase opportunities for these populations in the longer term.”  Read the whole 1,000 page report at https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/

Meantime, it’s supposed to snow again on Friday…