With Christmas approaching there is only one thing I want – snow!
That is a strange thing to say being from Minnesota, but it can’t snow without cold weather and there has been none lately and none in sight.
After record breaking warm temperatures in September and October and a near record November, we have seen temperatures in the mid to upper forties for fourteen straight days.
One day we were near 50 degrees, and thus far two nights have not even been below 40. That’s 12 degrees above the normal day time high for this time of year.
It seems surreal to see green grass, no outside hockey rinks in use, not a single lake frozen over for ice fishing, and the local ski slope where world champion Lindsey Vaughn learned to ski with no snow pack. But let me put that in a broader context.
Usually by December 1 temperatures rarely get above freezing day and night. Our snow comes primarily in the form of Alberta Clippers every few days that leave 1 to 4 inches on the ground before they move on. Snow from the Clippers accumulates because of the cold. Nothing melts.
But not this year. No Clippers and no cold, and the forecast is not encouraging. We will be well above freezing for most of the coming week, dipping down a little over the weekend, and then back up above freezing Christmas week.
Of course, what’s happening here is happening other places. If you saw the Green Bay Packers game yesterday (December 13) you know it was raining instead of snowing there because it was 54 degrees at game time…54 degrees in Green Bay, Wisconsin in the middle of December.
At the same time some people think this warm weather is great, even if the economies of the Upper Midwest have a vested interest in cold winters, not to mention the fact that without a snow pack to warm the ground, a cold snap of a few days could see the freeze line reaching buried pipe lines.
I am not among those who like the weather, not only because of the immediate impact it has on life here, but what it may be saying about the future.
Yet my dismay is ameliorated somewhat by the accord 196 countries just signed that is intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
It’s only a step, but it is an important one. It sure beats “drill, baby, drill.”
Of course, Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (one of the biggest jokes in Senate history), has already stated his opposition to the accord.
Actually he did so before the agreement was completed. Apparently he didn’t have to read it to know he was opposed to it, something common these days among Republicans.
But Inhofe and others like him have been losing any credibility they had as the public has become more aware of the fact that their source of climate change information has come from “research” funded by the fossil fuel industry just as the “research” that once argued smoking was not a health hazard was funded by the tobacco industry.
So here’s the deal. Why there is neither snow nor cold in Minnesota thus far this winter is not clear, but because of the work being done by the world’s best climate scientists there is reason to think it is yet another example of the climate effects of global warming in which human beings are playing a significant role.
That brings me full circle to say again that I believe the accord just signed by representatives of 196 nations is a sign of real hope.
It may not do much to give Minnesota a white Christmas this year, but it just might help save the planet.
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