Is this climate change, a coming ice age or global warming? (or just a fluke.)

Hello ladies and gentlemen and everyone else,

As most have probably noticed the weather has been a bit goofy. I was born in Wisconsin but moved to Phoenix at the age of ten. I know about the cold and the heat.

The weather in Phoenix has been beautiful since mid - December. For the past few weeks the high temps have been in the low to mid 70's and the low temps have been well above freezing. I don't think it dropped below 45 degrees in Phoenix yesterday. I left my home at 8:30 this morning wearing a t-shirt.

Alaska has been unusually warm as well. www.adn.com...

Southcentral Alaska's off-kilter winter continued Thursday and showed no signs of letting up anytime soon, with above-freezing temperatures destabilizing snow packs and cancelling sled dog races and classes.

The thermometer hit 48 degrees in Anchorage, tying it with 1977 for the record high for Jan. 23.
In Fairbanks, where the average high for the date was 1 degree above zero, the high Thursday was 34. Pounding rain replaced snowfall. Iced-over surfaces tangled traffic and briefly closed the Fairbanks International Airport.

High temperatures in a few cities not as warm as Anchorage Thursday:

Abilene, TX -- 34 degrees
Albany, NY -- 16 degrees
Charleston, SC -- 47 degrees
Chicago -- 10 degrees
Cincinnati -- 8 degrees
Baltimore, MD -- 24 degrees
Billings, Montana -- 27 degrees
Boise, Idaho -- 30 degrees
Boston -- 22 degrees
New York City -- 19 degrees
Pittsburgh -- 13 degrees
Washington, D.C. -- 28 degrees

(Anchorage's temperature peaked, as in Savannah, Ga., at 48 degrees )

Information from: www.nws.noaa.gov...

In contrast the Midwest and South East and New England areas are in a deep freeze.

www.bloomberg.com...

Temperatures across the eastern U.S. and parts of Ontario and Quebec will be at least 8 degrees below normal through Jan. 27, said Matt Rogers, president of the Commodity Weather Group LLC in Bethesda, Maryland. Next week will be colder, he said.

“The crazy thing is that the current cold snap this week looks to be a bit more modest in the face of next week’s outbreak,” Rogers said. “The cold coming for the end of January is sufficient to make this the coldest month of the century so far and the coldest the Lower 48 has felt in at least 20 years.”

Temperatures in Chicago fell lower than the South Pole this month as freezing weather boosted energy consumption, grounded thousands of flights across the U.S. and disrupted operations at refineries and natural gas production sites.

Brrrrrrrr.......

It makes me feel cold just thinking of how cold it is back east.

So what is your opinion is this just a fluke or is this climate change just the beginning of things to come?

Deniers can deny, this is anything but normal.


This will continue until earth wipes out humans and restart with inhabitants that will take care of it better.

reply to post by luciddream


I don't credit global warming at all. I think our weather is either heading for a mini or normal ice age. There is a chill in the air tht I don't remember before. Also I don't remember the rain, storms and the thunder etc. Our weather use to be pretty even, an event such as a spring tide and flooding was rare and then we went back to our normal greyishness. How I long for that greyishness again because I hate what we have now. Nature itself with its animals and plants seems to be all out of kilter, nothinbg feels right.

I must admit it has crossed my mind that we have saturated the earth with people and all the earth using and abusing treatment due to such numbers and I am wondering if we are about to suffer a planetary shakeup. We know life has started up a number of times in the past and the planet has enough means of removing us from her skin without the need of outside intervention. I hope we haven't blown it.

reply to post by justreleased


In Montreal here right now, it does feel like Siberia!

I hate it. No, let me rephrase that. I HATE IT !!!

I am one of those that think that the climate is changing. Not for the better.

Super storms, super tornadoes, super this, super that, mega this, mega that and now, Polar Vortexes...

Polar Vortex....really ??

Soon we're gonna need a new dictionary just for the new names...

Might just be me though..S&F.

reply to post by luciddream


Could be.

I hope it isn't anything so ominous but it is unusual to say the least.

One thing I failed to mention is although the temps have been great in the west / south west the precipitation has been virtually non existent.
(not good.)

It's normal in northern Alberta.
This is the pineapple express coming through right now, which was named decades ago. Tomorrow we get another cold front.

It's a little unusual in the US to get snow and ice so far south, but it's not the first time either.
Every it happens, and the citrus crops freeze, you have to be rich to afford orange juice.....

reply to post by SonoftheSun

Polar Vortex....really ??

Right. Where did that phrase come from?

(sounds governmental.)

reply to post by SonoftheSun

In Montreal here right now, it does feel like Siberia!

It's supposed to - its January in Canada.
I watched a documentary about winters last year.
Montreal was said to be the snow clearing capital of the world.

reply to post by snowspirit


Wow, really.

I thought it would be Albany or Buffalo. Hmmm....

Just glad I'm in Phoenix.

Toronto has been hit with server cold weather the entire week.

Monday to Thursday maintained a -25-35(w/ windchill), people are calling today, -9, a warm weather.

Sad.

I don't think their is enough information to say it is anything other than extreme winter weather in the middle of winter.
Please note I am not saying that global warming doesn't exist just I don't know that extreme cold in the cold season is indicative of anything abnormal.

SonoftheSun
Super storms, super tornadoes, super this, super that, mega this, mega that and now, Polar Vortexes...

Polar Vortex....really ??

Soon we're gonna need a new dictionary just for the new names...

Just because you may not have heard of something does not mean it is new.

"The polar vortex was first described as early as 1853. The phenomenon's sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) appears during the wintertime in the Northern Hemisphere and was discovered in 1952 with radiosonde observations at altitudes higher than 20 km."

reply to post by luciddream


LOL. It's a 'heatwave'.

I heard a few people down here complain it was a bit cloudy and was only going to get up to 72.

justreleased
Hello ladies and gentlemen and everyone else,

The weather in Phoenix has been beautiful since mid - December. For the past few weeks the high temps have been in the low to mid 70's and the low temps have been well above freezing. I don't think it dropped below 45 degrees in Phoenix yesterday. I left my home at 8:30 this morning wearing a t-shirt.

This isn't a thought provoking thread. You just want to brag and rub salt in the wound.

It gets cold in the winter? Huh didn't know that. Lol!
Well in my neighborhood we had near record lows this month. The records were all around 1900 so it got cold a hundred years ago to. I still say normal cycles are the reason but I'm sure it will all be blamed on climate change..

reply to post by opethPA


Well, learn something new everyday..

I stand corrected.

reply to post by Hoosierdaddy71


And what creates the cycles?

luciddream
Deniers can deny, this is anything but normal.

Deniers ??? Anything but normal???? ......mmmm

Normal for what? Since you have been alive, or your parents, or perhaps their parents?

Now I don't deny that the crap that we as a human race pump into the atmoshphere isn't helping the climate, maybe it's just speeding things up a little. But I do not for one minute believe that the human race is the sole cause for the weather anomolies that are occuring at the moment.

But what I do think ( and this is just my opinion, based on no scientific fact whatsoever) is that the earth is just going through one of its many climate phases, where there are extreme phases of cold as in America right now, and extreme heat such as we are having in Australia.

The simple fact is, these events would have occurred if humans were here or not.

reply to post by justreleased

I have lived for 60 years on the north east and during that time I have seen similar winters here . I wished it was warming but can remember in either 1972 or 3 that we had little snow and warmer temps . I had bought a new snowmobile and burnt a set of slides off of it dew to lack of snow and couldn't run through the day because the temps were just too warm for a free air engine .

I have seen years with early snow , late snow , and no snow to speak of ...years where it reminded me of Vancouver and other years that reminded me of Winnipeg ....Until they can accurately predict the weather for 72 hours on a consistent basis I wouldn't put too much faith in those telling us that it's going to be tropical in the next 100 years . I wish it would warm up a bit though ..the heating bill this winter is above average ...peace

I am wondering how much of this cold snap has to do with the recent flip of magnetic poles on the sun.

www.nasa.gov...

"It looks like we're no more than three to four months away from a complete field reversal," said solar physicist Todd Hoeksema of Stanford University. "This change will have ripple effects throughout the solar system."

reply to post by ohioriver


Interesting point. I'm sure it could have an impact on temps / weather.