Colder Or Warmer Winter?

By John Vlahakis

We’ve only been keeping track of daily temperature data since the late 1800’s. Geologically speaking that data is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the age of the earth and it’s past climatic upheavals. There are opposing viewpoints on the current climate change debates. Conservatives are calling liberals alarmists on global climate change. Liberals are calling conservatives ignorant on all things scientific. The media stakes out its position based on the political leanings of the corporation that owns them. This winter’s activity has the right saying that global warming is a bunch of hooey due to all of the cold and snow we experienced this year. Many are calling for the lynching of Al Gore on this one. There definitely was more snow this year for the Northeast. A lot of places set records. And it seemed a lot colder this winter to many of us here in the Midwest and East. Here in Chicago, winter was listed as one of the top four in snow production, and below than what is considered to be normal temperatures. Pundits would argue that more snow in the east and Midwest is due to more moisture in the air, due to global warming. All of those ice caps and glaciers have been shown to be melting at a higher rate according to U.S. Geological Survey in a report they issued yesterday. USGS as shown that the melting of glaciers and ice caps has accelerated in the last twenty years, but that the phenomena began back in the late 1800’s with the advent of the industrialized age. Interestingly scientists who study the history of the comings and goings of ice ages find that the earth has a past history of global warm ups and cool downs. What is new to the mix in the future history of the planets temperatures is man’s involvement in manipulating them. CO2 increases have been found in undisturbed samples of sediment that have been drilled out by geologists. The causes are unknown, but we do know that climate swings in the past have deadly and far reaching consequences for life on this planet. Just where our current climatic swing takes us is not entirely known at this time. There is an interesting link that covers the history of past ice ages, and can be found at http://www.aip.org/history/climate/cycles.htm