I’m sure some of you have noticed by now that AGW proponents are playing with our heads.
So I began to note down rough basics; first day of 75°F+ weather, last frost, first frost, storm frequency, and so forth. Apparently, according to AGW people, spring is now up to three weeks earlier than “just a few years ago” (a vague term). Let me share with you my relatively unscientific findings, based on local observations of the climate here in Missouri.
The first “warm stretch” of spring (3 consecutive days of 75°F or more) occurred within 5 days of each other in both 2006 and 2007. In 2008, it occurred 10 days late.
The first “cold snap” of fall/winter fell within 3 days in 2005-6, 2006-7 and 2007/8.
The last frost occurred within 3 days of each other in all years. This past winter was the 3rd snowiest on record. We hit record lows on no less than 3 occasions.
In March-April of 2006 and 2007 there were 10-12 stormy days (by “stormy”, I mean “severe storms”, i.e. hail, heavy rain, thunder and lightning, etc) In 2008 there were (so far) 3.
The dogwoods (the first things to bloom here) came out in late march in both 2006 and 2007. this year, they arrived in mid-April. The trees came into leaf in 2006 and 2007 by early april. they’re just starting to today (April 25th, 2008 )
OK, I know; small samples, highly unscientific and so forth, but remember the claim: Everyone has noticed winter becoming shorter and warmer, and summers are hotter and drier. Spring is getting earlier and earlier… etc etc. Since this is a statment about persnal experience, I decided to test it. And my “experiential” findings? No “later winters, earlier spirings”. If anything, things are pretty static. And spring was technically really late this year.
So what’s going on?
Surely in your life you’ve come across people who say things like “we never really had a summer last year, did we?”, when you can plainly remember lying on the sofa, fans and A/C on high with a cold cloth on your head, sweating in misery as the mercury hit 100 for the third straight day (not a terribly unusual occurrence here in the midwest). It’s basically that everyone constructs their own reality based on faulty recollection, and our minds fill in the gaps with invention that is utterly identical to real experience. We lie to ourselves. Every day.
The AGW crowd has gotten hold of this phenomenon and is using it against us now, playing with our own memories and implanting the idea that we have all experienced global warming in our everyday lives. The figures to back this up, however, are missing. In the reports where they cite our “personal experienec”, they never quote any real observations about how much warmer year X was over year Y, or how much later spring was (except vague terms like “weeks” or “days”. How many weeks and days? No response.)
I’m not suggesting that you need to perform this little experiment, although it might be interesting if you did. Nor am I saying that the AGW people are explicitly, deliberately doing this, although I am sure some are. Instead, I think it’s that a lot of well-intentioned AGW people have convinced themselves that the seasons are going haywire, and misremember the experiences of previous years to justify it, almost entirely unconsciously.
The only real result of my experiment, as far as I can tell, is that the world might be warming, or might not. It just isn’t doing much of anything here; so it’s hardly a Global phenomenon, is it?
I noticed spring is a bit late this year, too. It’s fairly easy for me to tell because I have an allergy to tree pollen. Sometimes I start to get mild symptoms in March and so it goes on. But some years spring is later and loads of pollen hits at once in mid-April and when that happens I get into a right state – streaming eyes, sneezing, wheezing, assthma attacks, the lot. Probably have a chest infection waiting in the wings for mid-May, as often happens in a late spring year.
Of course, as I haven’t made a note, this could be faulty memory syndrome. But I rather think not.