Freezing Out the Bigger Picture

I read the article, “Freezing Out the Bigger Picture”, from the New York Times. This article essentially discussed the difference between weather and climate. This article aims to answer the question, “If the world is really warming up, how come it is so darned cold?” Last month when President Obama was declaring that global warming was a fact, it was hard for many Americans to believe this due to the many record low temperatures all around the country. For example, “The temperature would bottom out later that night at 13 degrees in Washington, 14 in New York, 1 in Chicago, minus 6 in Minneapolis — and those readings were toasty compared to some of the lows earlier in January.” Most people think that whatever sort of temperature and weather is happening around them is actually happening everywhere. However, these people do not understand the difference between weather and climate. Scientists refer to global warming as “global” because they look at trends all around the globe. It is about what is happening in the long run and not about the weather fluctuations day to day. With the USA only covering about 2% of the world, this severe weather only happening in certain places in the USA, really has no effect on the rest of the world. “The Arctic blasts were caused by big dips in the jet stream that allowed frigid air to descend from the polar regions into the central and eastern United States. But toward the west, those dips have been counterbalanced by unusual northward swings of the jet stream that sent temperatures soaring.” So where there are record low temperatures in some places around the world, there are also record highs in others, and they balance each other out. For example, California has been in a drought with high temperatures for 3 years. Scientists contend the massive decline of sea ice in the Arctic has destabilized a weather pattern that normally keeps frigid air bottled up near the pole. “That pattern is known as the polar vortex and its boundary is a fast-moving river of air called the jet stream. When the vortex weakens, the jet stream can develop big kinks, creating zones of extreme heat and cold.” Therefore, although many people perceive that the world is cooling due to these low temperatures, globally this decrease in temperature is not the case, and the world is actually warming up.

This article is very relevant to everyone in the world. We all have some impact on making the world warm up and it is our job to stop it before it becomes a much bigger issue than is already is. These record high and low temperatures also affect us day to day. We have been hit by these extremely cold temperatures and snow storms, which are things we aren’t always used to. If we want to preserve our globe, it is important that we look past what is just going on around us, and we take into account the entire globe because we all must work together to help the earth.

I thought this article was very interesting. It gave a very different take on global warming that I hadn’t heard of before. I think it is important that everyone understands that weather and climate are very different, and just because the weather is one way around them, it does not mean the weather is like that everywhere. I liked how this article emphasized how important it is for everyone to take into account the climate globally and to not get stuck on the weather around them. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/science/freezing-out-the-bigger-picture.html?ref=science&_r=0