Sometimes it’s cold out.
In fact, this 2017-18 winter is breaking RECORDS for how cold it’s been!
The last year has seen over 10 and a half thousand low temperature records broken.
Prompting many to ask, is global warming even real?
I CAN SEE MY BREATH!
If you’re one of the many who question global warming during the winter, you’re not alone.
Remember when this happened?
Snow?!
How can we have a warm globe and ALSO have snow!?
The difference is… and let me speak plainly here.
WEATHER IS NOT CLIMATE.
Or, put another way, weather is MOOD climate is PERSONALITY.
You could tweet your hashtag current mood, but that’s not your overall personality,
right?
When you think of the climate this way, it makes a lot more sense.
Severe weather TODAY?
That’s a mood.
MORE severe weather over years or decades?
That’s Earth’s personality!
Citing severe winter as the reason there's no such thing as global warming is like saying:
‘I’m happy today, so I don’t have depression, bi-polar disorder, anxiety, or issues with
anger.’
No one can deny that fluctuation is just part of having a personality.
In this case, the personality of Mother Earth TODAY, is changing from how she used to be.
And it’s troubling.
Now, if you’re one of those who deny Mother Earth’s personality is changing, you’re
also not alone.
There ARE scientists who aren’t sure if humans are causing this climate personality
change.
To that I say, picture Albuquerque.
From 1991 to 2012 there were nearly 14,000 peer-reviewed published scientific papers
exploring climate science.
24 of those dissented and didn’t blame humans.
To put those numbers in perspective, that's like saying every single person in the United
States believes humans are causing climate change, but the population of Albuquerque
doesn’t.
That’s pretty astounding.
Would you believe Albuquerque, or literally everyone else.
Plus, even if YOU are just hearing about this today, science has centuries of research on
weather, climate, and the atmosphere.
In 1824 a scientist named Joseph Fourier realized the Earth’s atmosphere is what traps the
sun’s heat -- like the glass in a greenhouse.
Next in 1859, physicist John Tyndall put some CO2 in a bottle and realized it trapped heat!
That was waaaay before accusations of a liberal conspiracy hit the internet…
Then, in 1897, geologist Thomas Chamberlin wrote that the “conditions for life” might
be subject to a delicate balance of CO2 in the sea, earth and air!
And if we release the trapped CO2 from one of these, we could upset that balance.
And that’s what we’ve been doing.
It’s been over 100 years and we’re forcing Earth to change her personality -- to change
her climate.
The planet’s PERSONALITY is shifting, and that’s reflected in her MOOD swings.
Since the 1950s, winter storms ARE getting worse.
The heaviest storms happen when the surface temperature is between 32 and 28 degrees.
That’s still cold, Mr Snowball in Congress, but it used to be much colder!
This warmer air can hold more moisture which means more snow, more rain, and less freezing.
So, even though winter exists and one part of Earth might be cold right this second,
it’s still hotter everywhere on average.
Record hot days are topping record cold days three to one.
And that’s because Fourier was wrong, the atmosphere is not a sheet of glass.
It’s a multilayered complex and ever-changing system that we are still grasping an understanding
of.
In the end, the trend of our climate will continue, with stronger storms, wetter weather,
and eventually higher average sea levels, less ice and who knows what else.
Objective and documented observation says that’s where this trail of moods leads.
As the personality of our climate changes, we’re going to have to live with a Mother
Earth who is quick to anger, lashes out, and is less kind to her human passengers.
But hey, at least we can still pack snowballs and tweet denials.
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What do you guys think?
Let us know down in the comments.
Obviously climate science is really really complicated, and there's lots of other things
to consider here, but you know your opinion is important.
Also watch this video if you want more climate science, and thanks so much for watching Seeker.