The Herald published a letter on Thursday from a gentleman from Stanwood who argued that recent unseasonably cold temperatures make the theory of global warming seem ludicrous, and proves that the whole idea is “baloney.” His reasoning, though intuitive, points to an all too common misconception about how global warming actually works. What the writer interprets as evidence refuting global warming in fact makes the existence of the phenomenon all the more likely.
He criticizes the scientific community’s eschewing the term “global warming” for “climate change,” suggesting this must indicate that scientists have grown less certain about the notion that the Earth is getting warmer, when in reality, it’s a rhetorical device meant to help non-scientists like myself and the letter writer make a distinction between weather and climate. Weather is what we experience on a daily basis, i.e. “Today it is cold; yesterday it rained.” Climate refers to patterns of weather over time, i.e., “Seattle’s climate isn’t as rainy as everyone says.” An overall warming trend in the Earth’s climate actually causes faster-moving, more erratic weather patterns and more dramatic weather extremes — more very hot days and more very cold days, as well as more severe weather and precipitation, wintry and otherwise.
It can be very difficult to conceptualize the difference between weather on a given day and climate change over the past 100 years or so, but the security of future generations demands that we try.
Beth Murdock
Monroe
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