Updates
July 17, 2012: 30-second sound bite -- "tree rings don't lie, politicians do."
Original Post
[One day after posting the note below, the headlines are for a huge "deep freeze" for the Midwest today and heading into the Northeast.]
Y'all are gonna hear a lot of talk about the UN report released today that said 2010 ties for warmest year on record in quite some time (tied with 2005 and 1998).
If so, the warming is sure taking a long time. By my calculations, 1998 was about twelve years ago, and we only tied with 1998? I think paint dries faster than that, and even soccer games seem to move faster than that.
Anyway, as your Prius-driving friends are beating you over the head with that UN report today, tell them to read the Harvard Gazette, April 24, 2003 (and any number of other sources):
This review of changes in nature and culture during the past 1,000 years was published in the April 11 issue of the Journal of Energy and Environment. It puts subjective observations of climate change on a much firmer objective foundation. For example, tree-ring data show that temperatures were warmer than now in many far northern regions from 950 to 1100 A.D.Some have suggested the Vikings may have been responsible for global warming back then due to coal-powered ships.
[The Vikings and their coal-powered ships:
The paragraph above was preceded by this:
The heat and droughts of 2001 and 2002, and the unending winter of 2002-2003 in the Northeast have people wondering what on Earth is happening to the weather. Is there anything natural about such variability?Just saying.
To answer that question, researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) - right in the heart of New England's bad weather - took a look at how things have changed in the past 1,000 years. They looked at studies of changes in glaciers, corals, stalagmites, and fossils. They checked investigations of cores drilled out of ice caps and sediments lying on the bottom of lakes, rivers, and seas. They examined research on pollen, tree rings, tree lines, and junk left over from old cultures and colonies. Their conclusion: We are not living either in the warmest years of the past millennium nor in a time with the most extreme weather.
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why they would put out this story in January. Why not wait until July?
Oh, by the way, this winter (2010-2011) is now expected to be the coldest winter since the 1980's.
historically the next week, Jan 21-Jan 28th is the coldest week of the winter in the staes i have lived in ND and MN. Now the angle of the sun is rising, the sun lit portion of the days are getting longer and we are moving toward spring
ReplyDeleteI always felt February was the coldest month in Williston when I was growing up. But, of course, my dad always said Williston was in a relative "banana belt" compared to the rest of North Dakota: it always seemed warmer than other parts of the state -- just that two-square mile area. Ha.
ReplyDeleteYou know, there isn't a lot of difference between thirty degrees below zero and forty degrees below zero. Except bragging rights.