Wacky weather sign of global warming

Last summer’s cool, wet weather and this winter’s consistent plus-side temperatures are no doubt an indication that climate change and global warming are a reality, as many ‘kooks’ and ‘tree-huggers’ have been telling us over the years. Greenhouse gases are at an all-time high, North Americans’ fuel consumption is off the charts, and the results are here for everyone to see. Packs of cyclists zipping down Lakeshore Road as if it were a cool weekend in May, kids playing football on grass in local parks and outdoor hockey rinks are just puddles and lie, unused and unloved. Golf courses are open, ski hills are shut and light jackets rule. Are you sure there’s still two months left of winter? The tuques are in mothballs, the snow boots are still sitting unused and snowmen melt pitifully to the ground in front of our very eyes.

Mon pays, ce n’est plus l’hiver

Some climatologists point to the El Nino weather system in the Pacific Ocean as the cause of the recent wave of mild weather. Others say it’s just weather business as usual. Of course, the mild winter of 2001-’02 was followed by the brutal summer of 2002 and again by the brutal winter of 2003, where the temperature stayed below -20 for six weeks that year. Last Saturday’s high: 11.4 degrees. Wow.

But this year’s green Christmas was odd; the snow that fell Boxing Day and melted by New Year’s Day was even odder. Climatologists say this winter isn’t a preview of continuously balmy winters but rather a dress rehearsal of what we might see with regularity in say, 2035 or 2040. The cold Canadian winter, from which our national identity as hardy, unassuming folk springs from will return — just maybe not this year.

What is here to stay, though, is global warming, whether we want it or not, sort of like a grown child moving home. We’re just going to have to deal with it. 2007 will be the warmest year on record, but don’t anticipate 10-degree temperature jumps every year. Rather, look for insidious, yet clear indications that global warming is a reality. Like people playing golf the first week of January.