"It's simple physics; more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, emissions growing on a global basis, and consequently increasing temperatures."
Extreme drought, grass fires and warm afternoons at the park: It's a Central Texas winter wonderland.
Austin temperatures hit 81 degrees Monday afternoon, surpassing by 2 degrees the previous record for the date at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport that was set in 1988.
"A stunning survey of the latest evidence for intelligent life on Mars. Mac Tonnies brings a thoughtful, balanced and highly accessible approach to one of the most fascinating enigmas of our time."
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5 comments:
I found the TX story on Bruce Sterling's site. He makes the same observation about the, um, conspicuous lack of reference to climate change.
But living in Houston, I can tell you that warm winters in Texas aren't that odd. Last year when it snowed on Christmas Eve? Now that was a big story.
Last year we had tons of rain and cold winter. This year we had less than normal rain, and a warm winter. Which exactly is Global Warming supposed to be responsible for?
Don't get me wrong. I believe that Global Warming is a true issue, but using a warm, dry winter in Texas as proof of G.W. is being a little extremist.
Jezzie--
A warm winter in Texas is hardly "proof" of GW, and I didn't intend to suggest it was. But prolonged warm winters are an increasing trend; taken with the mass of data supporting GW, it's an area of concern.
I've no wish to be "extremist" -- just realistic.
I'm not discounting GW as a cause of climate change. The hurricane seasons this past couple of years, and the ice caps melting would seem to speak that it is a legitimate issue.
But to use GW as a cause for everything sightly off with the weather is disengenuous, and to mention it in every article dealing with a slight change in the weather would do nothing but incite panic. But then again, the press loves to do that, so I'm also surprised that it doesn't happen more often. But then I'm looking at it from a much more cynical point of view.
A couple of weeks before the warm weather dropped in, Texas got hit with a week or two of cold fronts that left roads in Dallas icy, and Houston with rain during the day, and below freezing temperatures at night. Sounds fairly seasonal, yes? That's why I fail to take a couple of weeks of warmer weather here an there quite as serious.
But to use GW as a cause for everything sightly off with the weather is disengenuous, and to mention it in every article dealing with a slight change in the weather would do nothing but incite panic. But then again, the press loves to do that, so I'm also surprised that it doesn't happen more often.
The climate is dictated by a *lot* of variables. At the same time, it's all interlinked; we simply lack the computational acumen to run a model that would allow us to see what next week's weather will be like -- let alone the next decade's.
But supposing we did have the power to model our planet's climate, we'd learn that GW is impacting the entire system. So we'd be foolish to write off unusual heat waves as "mere" anomalies. We shouldn't panic -- but we can keep our eyes open.
As for the media, I'm not surprised at all that the US press downplays the issue. But GW is a hot (pun intended) item in the European media ... and with good reason, since countries like the UK are going to get hammered in a big way before the US is finally roused from its stupor.
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