Just sayin'

When we find ourselves coping with sub-zero nights and days ...

As a reminder, for those of us in the United States who tend to judge everything only in terms of what's happening in our backyard, the phenomenon is called global warming, not North American warming. Science agencies have these thermometers in place around the globe. (I have two weather apps on my computer, and they obviously rely on different thermometers located in different parts of the Dells. The temps are always reasonably close, but they often vary a few degrees.) I noticed that just when some people were saying that there was no global warming because we are having such a bitter winter, news reports also said that Australia was suffering through it's hottest summer on record. For some reason, newscasts did not appear to tie those things together and wonder what those two facts might have to tell us.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA have issued their statistics for 2013, which do not agree: that it was the 4th (NOAA) or 7th (NASA) warmest year on record for planet Earth. The U.S.’s year was only its 37th hottest, but Australia hit the jackpot (warmest in 104 years of record-keeping). Most problematic: Earth’s 14 hottest years on record have all occurred in the last 17 years.And whether last year was the 4th hottest or the 7th, it is still not a good sign.