Putting it in perspective

'You know that something's happening but you don't know what it is, Mr. Jones' --B. Dylan
Most of us are aware that something is amiss but it is sure hard to place in context, let alone achieve understanding.

Losing Winter

As Climate Change Takes Hold, Our Coldest Season is the First Casualty

Marshall Heaven of Greenwich, Connecticut got tired of waiting for the snow to fall, so he bought two Backyard Blizzard snowmakers and can now promise 15-foot drifts as early as late November….Even though it’s late January in Mason Township, Maine, Steve Crone of New England Dogsledding tethers his eager canines to a golf cart. “We’d rather have snow,” he says with some embarrassment…Fifteen-year-old Cameron Sonley of Peterborough, Ontario, where the winter was two degrees warmer than usual in the 2006-2007 season, complained last March that because of high temperatures he was only able to go snowboarding four or five times, instead of his usual dozen….In Staten Island, New York, skaters have been thwarted for three straight years as pond ice failed to thicken…Janisse Ray, an outdoor recreation enthusiast in Danville, Vermont, got so frustrated whenthe West River hadn’t frozen by last January that she donned a wetsuit and floated downstream in an inner tube, holding aloft a sign that said “Where’s winter?”

Where indeed? Since 1970, average winter temperatures in New England have increased 4.4 degrees Fahrenheit. In the U.S., 2006 was the warmest year on record, and 1998 is number two. The last eight five-year periods were the warmest since we began taking national records 112 years ago. During the past 25 to 30 years, says the National Climatic Data Center, the warming trend has accelerated, from just over a tenth of one degree Fahrenheit per decade to almost a third of a degree.

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