Am I really in Duluth?

[wabene]

What is going on here? It is the middle of February. Duluth Minnesota has been ranked the 5th coldest city in the US. Snow and cold that's Duluth and I love it. It has been raining for over 24 hours. I have never seen rain in freaking February. It was supposed to turn to snow this morning but someone didn't get the memo. It was very rainy in November at about 35 degrees. What? C'mon just a few degrees colder and we would be buried! This is not good. I'm not sure I could talk the wife into a move deep up into Canada or the mountain west. Help!

[connyro]

rain all night here in the northern UP. This season has been very warm and I'm sick to death of the rain that seems to fall every 2 to 3 weeks all season long. Lake superior has almost no ice this season. I live up here for winter snow and cold so this is getting depressing. There's still a 2 to 3 foot base in the hills but we need cold and powder!

[DG99]

I hear the globe is warming, something to do with carbon dioxide and fossil fuels?

[JohnSKepler]

I hear the globe is warming, something to do with carbon dioxide and fossil fuels?

Actually, the Earth is much cooler now than it has been throughout most of its geologic history and we are, at the moment, rebounding from a particularly cold run that's lasted hundreds of thousands of years.

It would be awesome if the correlation between a single trace gas and global temperature was as straightforward as you suggest. We would be able to control climate on a global scale quite easily if this was the case. Turn deserts into pasture. Tundra into farmland. Etc. It's called terraforming. Unfortunately, climate is far, far more complex with feedback loops and oscillations we still know nothing about. We're really only modeling it to second-order right now (and we're not even sure how to do that) using imprecise initial conditions, large time steps, and large parcel sizes. What you're experiencing in Duluth is weather and it fluctuates, as does climate, with or without input from biologicals.

It was -30 in my backyard in Utah a few weeks ago. Never seen that before. -62 degrees at Peter Sinks, breaking a record. It made national news. If you're warm winter is due to carbon dioxide and fossil fuels then my cold winter must also be due to carbon dioxide and fossil fuels. So which is it?

[wabene]

Oh shit here we go. Can't I just complain? I did not say anything about fossil fuels. Last year was a great year with 120 inches of snow and a full 4 month ski season. I was skiing the second week of April. The year before it shut down on March 1st and I was not happy. Here's hoping for for an Alberta Clipper!!!!!

[Stephen]

Oh shit here we go. Can't I just complain?

I feel sorry for you — complain all you want!

(Rain in the winter sucks — that’s why I’m not in PDX.)

[Crayefish]

I hear the globe is warming, something to do with carbon dioxide and fossil fuels?

Actually, the Earth is much cooler now than it has been throughout most of its geologic history and we are, at the moment, rebounding from a particularly cold run that's lasted hundreds of thousands of years.

Earth Temperature.png

It would be awesome if the correlation between a single trace gas and global temperature was as straightforward as you suggest. We would be able to control climate on a global scale quite easily if this was the case. Turn deserts into pasture. Tundra into farmland. Etc. It's called terraforming. Unfortunately, climate is far, far more complex with feedback loops and oscillations we still know nothing about. We're really only modeling it to second-order right now (and we're not even sure how to do that) using imprecise initial conditions, large time steps, and large parcel sizes. What you're experiencing in Duluth is weather and it fluctuates, as does climate, with or without input from biologicals.

It was -30 in my backyard in Utah a few weeks ago. Never seen that before. -62 degrees at Peter Sinks, breaking a record. It made national news. If you're warm winter is due to carbon dioxide and fossil fuels then my cold winter must also be due to carbon dioxide and fossil fuels. So which is it?

Indeed... the earth has gone from snowball earth periods (nearly the whole planet frozen: happened a few times in the past few billion years) to very hot periods. Often goes with some form of extinction event. One difference now (excluding asteroid impacts) is the rate in which it is happening. Normally takes tens of thousands to millions of years, not hundreds of years.

One misnomer about global warming is the name... its an unfortunate choice because people make the comment 'but it's colder here.' Whole global temps are rising as a total average, but we're seeing more extreme weather events too. So, while most places are getting hotter (e.g. South Africa is seeing double the global increase in temperatures), some places are seeing localised cooling. This is why scientists use the term 'climate change' now. There is no doubt that CO2 and CH4 are greenhouse gases, and we have made a lot more since the industrial age.

[connyro]

Umm, guys? It seems like this thread is supposed to be about a weirdly warm winter in the upper great lakes. Nobody questioned climate change science or stated that it's global warming, so there's no need for lectures.

There's a pretty big annual sled dog race in my community that was just canceled (UP 200). I don't recall it ever getting canceled due to warm weather conditions. It's just a rare shitty winter season for us.

[wabene]

^^yes

[wabene]

I had high hopes for winter this year and last year was great. I think the UP had a couple of places in the top 5 last year with over 300 inches. Damn I'd need a front end loader for my driveway, but bring it!

We have the rain dance. Maybe what we need is a snow dance!