Global Warming. Where are You?

Ok. What has happened to global warming? This definitely has been one of the oddest winters ever. This time last year in Norman, Oklahoma we had tornado warnings and severe thunderstorms and this year we constantly have winter weather advisories and threats of ice. I hate the winter time, my kids hate the cold and the dismal, gray skies puts me in a negative attitude. I read an article a while back that said global warming was just a hoax because the world was actually getting cooler and scientists skewed the data. Did I mention that the temperature has only risen 1.3 degrees in the last 100 years according to this article? Let's look at the facts to see if this winter is almost over.

As of right now, 49 states has remnants of snow somewhere. The only state that doesn't is Hawaii. 67.1 percent of the United States has snow on the ground with an average depth of 8 inches and according to this article, normally only 40 to 50 percent will have snow. Also as this article states, this snowy winter doesn't prove that global warming doesn't exist as weather is variable, and this winter is just wetter due to the patterns of El-Nino which brings increased moisture along the southwestern parts of the US on average every 3 to 7 years. So this winter weather is just because of an unusual weather pattern. Unfortunately, this unique pattern is expected to last a few more weeks.

Will this winter weather be over soon? Well, I figure that since Punxsutawney Phil predicted 6 more weeks of winter, then it will be over soon enough. According to the National Climatic Weather Center, he has only been right 40 percent of the time. At that rate, he is better than the average weatherman, but I am willing to take my chances that it will get better.

People in Pennsylvania are also blaming global warming on the unusual winter weather up there. In this article, a climate scientist say that this winter has been weird because of the frequent larger amounts of accumulating snow unlike the usual a little here and a little there. I personally thought that the North Eastern part of the US was always snow covered during the winter. They are used to it. Almost every vehicle up there is a four wheel drive and that is where most of the snowmobile sales are at.

I personally don't think that global warming is as real as they make it out to be. 1.3 degrees warmer over a period of 100 years is not that significant to me. Didn't the Earth have a few ice ages, then a few melts, and they another ice age roughly 13,000 years ago? I think that this weird, colder winter is just because of the shifting weather patterns and this is the year that the pattern brings moisture from California, it meets with the cold air from the North and produces snow in the southern areas of the US. And do I think that it is over? I don't really know, and I just heard that it is supposed to snow here tomorrow night.