While we continue to moan and groan about these ridiculously cold temperatures some would be inclined to poke fun at the theory of global warming. I mean how the heck can it get this cold for so long if in fact global warming is occurring. During these bitter cold spells some meteorologists like myself will shy away from mentioning those 2 words. Just by simply mentioning ‘global warming’ or ‘Al Gore’ can be interpreted as being critical or cynical and it could ruffle some feathers causing some, especially those on the left, to be offended. That’s my take anyway. You’ve got to be careful. For sure the data has shown that the earth is getting warmer but that does not rule out having arctic cold waves in winter. It’s just that their frequency has been declining lately.
In my view it’s more glamorous and newsworthy to say that the warming is being caused by humans and that it will be a runaway phenomena and never reverse back to cooling. I don’t necessarily believe that. I feel that natural cycles of climate are at work and that recent decades of warming are largely due to the natural cycles of climate change worldwide. With this in mind having a decade or 2 of global cooling can’t be ruled out in the next century. But I don’t completely rule out the human factor. I just feel that it’s a lot less than what we are led to believe.
Data reveals that counting the number of days since 2000 there have been 2 days in the top 100 coldest days across the lower 48. However there have been 13 days in the top 100 warmest days. That is… far more warm extremes than cold extremes and this is probably what we can expect during this decade and beyond but probably not for the next 100 years.
