How can a major newspaper article about abnormally dry and warm winter weather fail to mention global warming even once? The meteorological phenomena of La Niña and the Arctic Oscillation are discussed, but not the climatological trends amplifying their effects. Talk about missing the forest for the trees!
The temperature in Minneapolis didn’t fall to zero degrees this winter until Jan. 12. On Jan. 5., the daytime high in Rapid City, S.D. (a record-setting 71 degrees), was higher than in balmy Miami (69 degrees). And just a couple of days before New Year’s, visitors to Park City, Utah, skied on man-made snow and dined al fresco — without their parkas.
Throughout the continental United States, it’s been a very warm winter.
“The talk across the whole country has been, ‘Where has winter been?’” said Dale Eck, who runs the global forecast center at the Weather Channel in Atlanta.
The answer: A combination of factors has trapped the winter’s cold air in the northern latitudes over Canada and Alaska.
“If you look at U.S. temperatures, you’d say, ‘Wow, it was a warm winter,’” said Dan Cayan, a climate researcher at the U.S. Geological Service and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla. And you’d be right.