know your science

 

Not sure if you have heard, but the United Kingdom just experienced one of its worst cold snaps in decades.

The question is…. does this validate or refute global warming?

Many people use the argument that global warming must not be real, because if it were we would not have such harsh winters.  But many scientists feel that these extreme weather conditions are the proof that’s in the pudding, so to speak.

“Even though this is quite a cold winter by recent standards it is still perfectly consistent with predictions for global warming,” said Dr Myles Allen, head of the Climate Dynamics group at Department of Physics, University of Oxford, speaking to the Telegraph UK.

“If it wasn’t for global warming this cold snap would happen much more regularly. What is interesting is that we are now surprised by this kind of weather. I doubt we would have been in the 1950s because it was much more common.”

The essence of this statement is that since we have a longer period of time between extreme weather conditions, like this cold snap, it is more likely that that global temperatures are increasing.  Especially since we used to experience harsh weather more frequently. Therefore, the winter seems bad because it is unusual.  

Another explanation is that only certain areas will have harsher, colder climates due to global changes.  The Earth and its atmosphere may always be searching for balance.  As we wrote yesterday, California and other sub tropical areas are expanding, making the regions more dry and hot.  This will effect air currents and water temperatures in the surrounding areas, which have an impact on the currents and temperatures in other areas.

So, as some regions get hotter and hotter, other regions may get colder and colder.  But that doesn’t mean the global warming does not exist.  

One must also remember that there is a big distinction between climate and weather.  Climate encompasses the temperatures, humidity, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorological factors in a given region over long periods of time.  And, weather is a set of all the phenomena occurring in a given atmosphere at a given time.  Climate is usually described by tracking weather over a long period of time, and is influenced by specific latitude, terrain, altitude, and currents.  

Therefore it is a fallacy to look at an individual weather occurrence and use it to define climate.  Climate scientists look at the patterns of weather and determine changes in climate.  For example, an over abundance of hurricanes becomes a pattern and changes the definition of the climate for that region.  In the case of one cold snap, it cannot be used to define a new climate if it occurs one time.

The reason we are spending the time making this distinction is because it is felt that more and more people will use this to justify that global warming is not real, and they will use single weather events as proof.  If those who understand that we are indeed undergoing a climate destabilization do not understand the facts behind how weather occurs, they will be unable to explain the truth to those who question.