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PDF versionIt's hot outside!
by Maureen Fiedler on Jul. 22, 2011
Studies show that global warming will increase the frequency or intensity of many kinds of extreme weather. While we can't attribute a particular heat wave or hurricane to global warming, the trends are clear: Global warming loads the atmospheric dice to roll "heat wave" or "intense storm" more often.
I am currently in Western New York, not far from Buffalo. Weather-wise, this area is most famous for its deep winter snows. But it's also famous for mild summers. When I was growing up here in the 1950s and 1960s, summer temperatures in July and August were in the 70s most of the time, and anything above 85 degrees was considered "scorching." When air conditioning became common, Western New Yorkers usually thought the expense was not worth the few days they'd need it.
Now, for about a week, temperatures have been in the 90s, with a heat index yesterday that stretched into triple digits. When I asked folks who live around here, they said that summer temperatures had been rising for the last several years, and they are feeling it. And the local farmers are suffering from a drought.
Scorching heat is a nationwide phenomenon at the moment, with especially punishing temperatures across the southern plains states. So, I wonder why we don't hear more commentary about "climate change" in the media these days. Now, I do understand that one cannot legitimately link single weather events to climate change. But according to the Environmental Defense Fund:
So, maybe there's a message in this month's scorching temperatures -- something for "climate deniers" to ponder and something that will lead "climate believers" into new action. All of us who believe that we have a responsibility to care for God's creation need to take this seriously.
This is the NCR at its
This is the NCR at its best.
Now the NCR is worked up about it being too hot in......Buffalo NY.
Buffalo NY. Too hot. You cant make this stuff up.
The hottest temp recorded in Buffalo was in 1948. 99 deg F!!!!
The second highest in 1933. But global warming, not Bush's fault. Hoover, FDR, Truman. Their fault.
Hey, I can understand you'd want to talk about the weather in New York, instead of the New Yorkers killed by your legal abortion. 6 million of them. But really, isnt this a bit silly?
anyone laughing at Al Gore
anyone laughing at Al Gore anymore?
If you NCR think Buffalo is
If you NCR think Buffalo is hot...I'd suggest running to the nearest confessional, then cease writing your Democrat party propaganda articles!
It's 6 degrees cooler than
It's 6 degrees cooler than average in S Cal. this year.Don't tell me you're one of the global cooling deniers!
Being from Frisco [cool today
Being from Frisco [cool today at 65%] and where all bridge fares must be paid upon coming into the City we have a emergency plan to identify all climate warmer deniers by auto license #. Upon presenting themselves at the toll gate we plan to charge them, only deniers, $1000 dollars to cross over.
Ms. Fiedler has a short
Ms. Fiedler has a short memory. The summer of 2010 was unusually cool on the east cost followed by a cold winter with a record setting snow fall.
Yes indeed, there seems to be
Yes indeed, there seems to be a strange silence on the taboo topic of Climate Change. But then the concept of CC has become so laden with all kinds of personal or political agendas that it seems unproductive to even refer to CC these days. The thing is, whether there is CC or not, and whether our burning of fossil fuels is creating it or not, the facts are there: there is an increasing trend in the frequency and intensity of heat waves and other violent climatic events, in the USA and elsewhere, as well as a clear warming trend in minimal temperatures. People get fooled and discussions get side-tracked because of the inherent variability of the weather. There can still be cold years and cool summers, as there have long been, but their relative probability, relative to the hot events, is falling. The problem here is that not everyone really grasps the notion of relative probability: the odds change and become more skewed. Nature, it seems, is in the process of teaching it to us the hard way. More discussions seem useless. We can do a number of things right now. For example, put in place heat-adaptation and health alert systems and, above all, start weaning ourselves away from burning carbon-laden fuels by adopting, even at higher cost, new technologies. As they say, the heat is on!
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