Fast-melting GreenlandPosted Jan16, 2007 at 09:46 PMI've had a couple of different readers take me to task for my column on Saturday about global warming, believing that I somehow was implying that rapid glacial melting was not occurring in Greenland when I wrote about the gradual nature of global warming. That was not my intent at all. Rapid melting in Greenland is obvious. I've seen the satellite photos. But the way we got there, according to much observation and research, was primarily through a gradual rise in nighttime and wintertime low temperatures in the Arctic region over several past years rather than suddenly spiking high temperatures. It is widely called "global warming" but it is not uniform across the Earth's surface, and warming average temperatures have been noted at a disproportionate level in low temperatures in the high northern latitudes. The main point of the article was that the recent mild weather could not be with any real certainty be linked to global warming. The mild weather was more a product of the Eastern Pacific Oscillation in the negative phase ... or a strong low in Gulf of Alaska area continually spinning mild Pacific air across the nation ... and El Nino, or the warming of central Pacific waters, entering a moderate phase. Well, the EPO is positive now, the Gulf of Alaska low is no more and El Nino is weakening. So a period of Arctic chill has returned for several days, possibly weeks. The period of Arctic cold ahead does not disprove global warming any more than the period of mild was a definite product of it. |
About this blog
Kevin Myatt works on the copy desk for The Roanoke Times and is its principal weather geek, writing a weekly weather column and advising the newsroom on weather topics. He helps guide students on a storm chasing trip to the central U.S. each May and was an editor for "Hurricanes and the Middle Atlantic States." .....Advertisement.....
|
...Advertisement...
...Advertisement...
No comments yet