When my little dog, Moku, decided it was time to go out this morning, sleet had just begun to fall. By the time I left for work, the snow was piling up (by North Carolina standards). The main driving lanes on the freeway remained clear and people drove with caution. When I came to my exit it was hard to find because it was buried beneath a thin blanket of snow.
Joy told me that Moku was so enamored of playing in the white stuff that he wouldn’t come when she called him. I’m sorry I missed that, because it was the first time Moku saw snow.
Last week, one of the observatories on the Big Island was closed due to snow on the road. I hear Malibu got their first snow in 20 years today also. (Sadly, another cold snap finished off what was left of the California citrus crop as well.) So now we get global warming and freaky winter storms?
Are we experiencing climatic change in the direction of a warming trend? in the direction of a decrease in stability (and, therefore, predictability)? or are we comparing recent phenomena to that previously experienced in our generation, which is only a small snippet on the great length of earth’s weather strip chart?
Chicken Little reporting from the North Carolina tundra.
