May 24

The historic snowfall amounts this past winter, the historic and tragic outbreak of tornadoes, the terrible flooding along the Mississippi River, and the other weather anomalies of recent times, make one wonder if there is some underlying cause.  Of course, these events are infinitesimal blips in the eons of the Earth’s climate history.  So we must exercise extreme caution when we ponder any sort of cause and effect.

But it seems more than a coincidence that the warming of the planet (which is irrefutable science — don’t listen to the naysayer talking heads in the media or political circles) may be playing a role.

Many scientific studies have noted the correlation between the rising temperature of the planet and the rising temperature of the ocean’s waters.  As we all learned in science class, as water warms it evaporates more quickly.  A warmer ocean pumps more moisture into the atmosphere — and that ultimately leads to more rain (and, in the winter, more snow).  The warmer-water phenomenon may also be a factor in the stronger hurricanes that we’ve seen in recent times.

Real climatological trends take centuries of data to confirm.  But it does seem like the rise in the Earth’s temperature has tweaked the global weather engine just enough to spawn a higher frequency of extreme weather events.