Snow No More! | Green Energy News

February 11, 2010 – Vol.14 No.47

SNOW NO MORE!
by Bruce Mulliken, Green Energy News

For the second time in less than a week the Mid-Atlantic region of the US has been hit by a blizzard. This you may have already heard. The storm of February 9 -10 deposited 10 - 20 inches of snow from Virginia to New York. Nearby, at the Baltimore airport, about a foot was measured, bringing the season total to more than six feet. The normal average yearly snowfall is about 18 inches there.

There’s another snow event on the way for President’s Day, February 15.

It’s true that no single storm, not even the storms of one season, can be blamed on global warming and a changing climate. Only weather patterns over a decade or so should be looked at to determine climate trends.

However, these things we know:

--- Since the beginning of industrial times man has been changing the composition of the atmosphere. The air we breathe today in the onion-skin-thin atmosphere is not the same as the air of over 150 years ago. Some pollutants fall out of the sky within days, but carbon dioxide lingers.

--- It takes warm moist air, mixed with microscopic solid particles and cold air to make precipitation – snow and rain. It is the chance combination of these ingredients in the atmospheric soup, stirred up by an area of low pressure, that will create a snow or rain storm. Storms are continually fed with these ingredients as they travel along.

--- A snowstorm needs warm moist air to flourish. The more humidity the better. The average annual snowfall at the South Pole is about an inch. (It just doesn’t melt.) Snow is a warm, moist air event, not one made by cold dry air.

--- None of the significant storms already experienced this season were accompanied by extremely cold weather. True, temperatures here have been colder than normal, but during the storms air temperatures were only a few degrees below freezing.

--- Since the beginning of global warming research and debate, scientists have predicted more precipitation and extreme events – rain and snow – because of the higher moisture content of the air brought on by warmer temperatures. Warm air holds more water than cold.

--- There is, naturally, some skepticism as to the possibility that these storms are caused by man. It is unknown whether these climate skeptics - political, pundits, or even individuals - have their beliefs steered by special interests, financial investments, their sources of knowledge, or just general disbelief. Yet, when possible, they should be asked what directs them to believe what they believe as well as what interest they have in the matter.

--- Similarly, scientists and other global warming/climate change believers, should be questioned as to the basis of their beliefs. (For the record, my beliefs, at their core, are based on simple facts. It’s a very thin atmosphere we live in. Globally, we blow particles into the air, 24/7, 365 days a year, that nature wouldn’t have done on its own. With global industrialization and population growth the exhaust of the planet is growing daily. We could easily change the weather and climate over time, I believe.)

The economic impacts of severe weather are typically high. State and local governments spend money to insure the safety of citizens. With the recession, generally speaking, most of the states and municipalities in the country, including those hit by these storms, are already financially strapped.

Further, businesses lose money with fewer customers and lost work days that are never recouped. Businesses, too, have to pay for storm cleanup as well as to some extent for physical damage.

Homeowners, too, can have losses uncovered by insurance.

Though it may take months to determine the actual losses, the real economic effects of these storms are often felt right away by many, a day or two without pay, for instance.

Finally there are personal losses. People can slip and fall on ice. Heart attacks from shoveling snow are common.

If the storms are being caused by man, then the storms may never have had to happen, economies shouldn’t have had to suffer, and people who died shouldn’t have.