A lot of times “Global Warming” is a polarizing topic. No pun intended. A lot people say that global warming can’t be real because there have been multiple snow storms, blizzards and winter weather events in recent history.
Background
The term “Global Warming” is more about incremental shifts in the earth’s temperature. It’s a look at the earth’s climate, and not the weather. So it can’t be “felt” or “seen” on a day-to-day basis. Instead, it’s something that slowly changes over time.
Think about it like a person’s weight since high school graduation. Maybe a person graduated at 170 pounds. And let’s say this person put on a pound or two every year. Maybe after 10 years – and 20 pounds gained – they look in the mirror, notice a small difference, but don’t see the problem. It’s normal, they say. But, if that trend continues, after 25 years (at 43 years old) the total weight gain is around 50 pounds.
And that’s a problem. What about another 20 years? Another 40 pounds. Now, at 63 years old, that person who graduated at 170 pounds is up to 260 pounds.
Some research suggests that it is cyclic and we are just moving into a “warmer” cycle. But, most research shows that the shift in the global temperature has never been this drastic in this short a time frame.
What does that mean for winter
The Washington Post and the USA Today recently looked at how the increase in our global temperatures has impacted winter storms on the East Coast. No doubt prompted to do so by Hurricane (turned “Superstorm”) Sandy and the recent Nor’easter dubbed “Nemo” by The Weather Channel.
What they found was quite interesting. An excerpt from USA Today:
— The United States has been walloped by twice as many of the most extreme snowstorms in the past 50 years than in the previous 60 years, according to an upcoming study on extreme weather by leading federal and university climate scientists. This also fits with a dramatic upward trend in extreme winter precipitation — both rain and snow — in the Northeastern U.S. charted by the National Climatic Data Center.
— Yet the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University says that spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has shrunk on average by 1 million square miles in the last 45 years.
— And an upcoming study in the Journal of Climate says computer models predict annual global snowfall to shrink by more than a foot in the next 50 years. The study’s author said most people live in parts of the United States that are likely to see annual snowfall drop between 30 and 70 percent by the end of the century.
Turns out that winter was becoming shorter and more turbulent. In essence, more snow was falling less of the time. During the last few decades the likelihood of receiving just an inch of snow diminished while the chances for a major snow event increased.
Meteorologists explain that it all makes sense: As the air temperature gets warmer it is able to hold more moisture, and, in-turn eventually precipitate more rain or snow later. So while an “on-average” warmer atmosphere might not snow 35 degrees and instead rain.. When it does snow, look out.
So, generally speaking, a snowstorm that – 20 years ago – would have been snowing with a temperature at 25 degrees might instead be snowing at 27 degrees. The change in two degrees might not seem like much, but it means extra water vapor available to snow.
Changes in Amarillo
Local weather readings have only been kept in most US cities for the past 150 years. In Amarillo, local weather data has only been kept for about the last 120 years. During that time snow records have shown that the 120-year, average snowfall in Amarillo is 17.8 inches per year. But in the past 40 years that has shifted.
Based on data extrapolation from the last 40 years, our current seasonal average of 18.1″ of snow. And if our trend continues – without any other additional atmospheric changes – in another 40 years we will be looking at 20.3″ of annual snowfall
