Global Warming, Local Warming, or a Mild Winter? Phenology for 2/29/12

It's February, and Hell isn't frozen over...as it should be. The Portland (Maine) Press-Herald's feature photo comes from the banks of Lake Michigan, a long drive from the town of Hell, but clearly shows a lack of the usual ice and snow. The kid's wearing a windbreaker, for pity's sake. In Michigan, in February, nobody should want to step outside without at least a quilted coat...

http://www.pressherald.com/news/nationworld/belief-in-global-warming-soars-as-mercury-rises_2012-02-29.html

The United States has had a mild winter. Most of us have expected snow and got rain, several times; for many of us that's been the way the whole winter's gone.

My yard is full of crocuses. Further down the mountain, in Gate City, somebody's yard is full of daffodils. Spring peepers are peeping in every stream, including at least one stream that doesn't normally have frogs. Robins are flocking on grassy lawns. Finches and bluebirds are warbling in the hedge at the Cat Sanctuary, greatly annoying the cardinals, who are quintessentially cute when they're mad. Annoyed cardinals fluff out their bright red feathers and shout, "Cheer! Cheer! Cheer!"

No, of course the cats don't bother them, although when the jays get here they'll probably tease the cats. The cats have learned by now that they can't catch a bird unless it's grounded by illness. Bisquit will still catch and eat birds when she can. I can tell it's Bisquit because none of the cats ever keeps a bird down for long.

But, anyway: is this "global warming"? Not necessarily. When I mention this winter's unusual mildness I like to compare it with the mild winters we had in the early 1970s. In 1972 there was ice on a puddle only one of the mornings when I waited in the dark for the school bus. In 1974 we didn't get a single "snow day." We have seen weather like this before. It comes and it goes. Later in the 1970s we had long, cold, snowy winters; in 1977 schools were open on January 4, and then again on February 6, with snow on the ground every day in between.

And what's the rest of the globe experiencing in the way of winter weather? If you don't get the Kingsport Daily News (or its satellites, with front-page headlines and "masthead" titles for Scott County, Jonesborough, and other communities--inside it's still the same Daily News) you can find most of the news stories our local free paper features at http://www.reuters.com/. Reuters is global, and has reported that Europe's been getting all the cold weather we've missed (or not). Although Reuters accepts the theory of global warming and has featured articles that headline weather news as evidence of global warming, here are a few of this winter's highlights:

Heavy snow closes waterways in Turkey: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/10/turkey-bosphorus-idUSL5E8DA1W920120210

Icy weather in subtropical Greece: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/28/us-greece-idUSTRE81R23G20120228

Frozen canals in sunny Italy: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/22/markets-grain-europe-idUSL5E8DMALL20120222

It's important to distinguish between genuine "global warming," genuine "local warming" effects caused by local conditions (such as urbanization), and the usual variations in weather from one year to the next. Although the United States has definitely had a mild winter, this winter's weather has been within the normal range of variation. Reading the temperature statistics for different parts of the U.S. shows solid evidence of local warming, not global warming.

If you're not accustomed to comparing temperature statistics, here's an easy way to start: If you provide an address for e-mail purposes, it shouldn't be an address where you actually live, so why should it be in the same neighborhood? If you use a public-access computer in a city, choose an "address" in a rural area. If you use a computer in a small town or remote suburb, choose an "address" in the nearest big city. This means that every time you log into your e-mail service, you'll be able to compare the temperature for the neighborhood where the computer is, versus a more or less urban neighborhood fifty or a hundred miles away. This will soon convince you that temperatures are consistently higher in a city than they are in the country...and the bigger the city, the stronger the effect is.

People in southwestern Virginia usually imagine that, because D.C. and Maryland are further north, the weather up there would be colder than it is here. They're always surprised to see that, in fact, D.C. temperatures tend to run almost ten degrees higher than ours. Often the same weather patterns pass over Northern and Southwestern Virginia, and sometimes the same snowstorms dump more snow on Northern Virginia (and sometimes the opposite)...but, while those weather patterns are passing, our temperatures are consistently in the "rural" range, comparable with those from Manassas (Virginia) or Clarksville (Maryland), never in the "urban" range with D.C.

If you like it warm, you might want to move to the inner city. If you like cool, brisk, energizing weather, you might prefer to live in the country...and fight urbanization tooth and nail.