Snowmageddon

"Snowmageddon." "Snowpocalypse." "SnOMG." These popular depictions of the record snowstorms that crippled the Mid-Atlantic region in recent days demonstrate that the American public knows the weather is disastrously out of control. Instead of galvanizing Congress to take action to stop the man made disruption of our climate, political pundits are using these storms to justify inaction. According to the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, the "back-to-back snowstorms in the capital were an inconvenient meteorological phenomenon for Al Gore." Fox News host Sean Hannity argued "the most severe winter storm in years" would "seem to contradict Al Gore's hysterical global warming theories." "Where's Al Gore when we need him?" quipped Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Before the storm hit, the Virginia GOP launched a web ad mocking "12 inches of global warming," attacking Democrats who had voted in favor of climate and clean energy legislation. After hundreds of thousands of people lost power, several people died, and states of emergency were declared in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, Sen. Jim Inhofe's (R-OK) family joined in the mockery, building an igloo on the National Mall and calling it "Al Gore's New Home." The Washington press dutifully reported the "climate-change debate."

WARMING FUELS WINTER STORMS: "The last few years have brought several unusually heavy snowstorms as warmer and moister air over southern states has penetrated further north, colliding with bitter cold air masses," National Wildlife Federation climate scientist Amanda Staudt explains. Even as winters have been getting shorter -- spring arrives 10-14 days earlier than it did 20 years ago -- many areas are seeing bigger and more intense snowstorms. "The fact that the oceans are warmer now than they were, say, 30 years ago," top climate scientist Kevin Trenberth told NPR, "means there's about on average 4 percent more water vapor lurking around over the oceans than there was, say, in the 1970s." As the Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States report issued by the federal government describes, warmer oceans and shifting atmospheric circulation mean "strong cold season storms are likely to become stronger and more frequent." A 2006 scientific paper by Chagnon et al. found that "most of the United States had 71% -- 80% of their snowstorms in warmer-than-normal years," so that "a future with wetter and warmer winters" will "bring more snowstorms." This season's extreme weather is also influenced by natural oscillations in oceanic and atmospheric circulation, including El Nino -- unusual warmth in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that climate researchers expect may become permanent if global warming continues to rise. "Like it or not," says scientist Daniel Richter, "we live in the Anthropocene age."

KILLING THE MESSENGER: Even as right-wing allies of the fossil fuel industry cite snowstorms to attack Al Gore, a more concerted campaign has been launched against the credibility of climate scientists. After hacked e-mails from climate researchers surfaced last November, conspiracy theorists and conservative operatives have used the "Climategate" e-mails to falsely assert malfeasance by the scientists. Based on the claims of bloggers and right-wing journalists, Fox News host Glenn Beck argued that members of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) should commit suicide because they had "so dishonored themselves." The mainstream press now agrees that the IPCC is compromised by "steady drip of unsettling errors" in its landmark reports on climate science. The New York Times ran a front-page story about the IPCC facing a "siege on their credibility," quoting Chris Monckton, a global warming denier who has called some climate activists "Hitler Youth." Not to be outdone, the Washington Post claimed that a "series of missteps by climate scientists" threatens the "climate-change agenda." Despite the effectiveness of the right-wing noise campaign in getting journalists to blame the victims, the IPCC's work, done by unpaid volunteers, remains utterly sound. A review of the claimed errors found "so far only one -- or at most two -- legitimate errors" in the entirety of the 3,000 page IPCC 2007 report. However, the IPCC report has been found to be overly conservative with respect to sea level rise and greenhouse gas emissions -- meaning its warnings are insufficiently strong.

THE WARMEST WINTER: Global warming, while exacerbating both warm and cold weather, necessarily increases warmth more often than it does cold. After the hottest decade on record, we are in the hottest winter in the satellite record, and this past January was one of the hottest Januaries on record for the planet. Vancouver's Winter Games "are quickly earning a reputation as the Rain Games," since "the warmest January in Vancouver history" is forcing the organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympics to helicopter in snow to cover mountains. Increased warmth and changing weather patterns have led to glacial retreat and unreliable snowfall across the globe, putting the future of alpine sports and the Winter Olympics in jeopardy. Israel is in its "longest winter heat wave" in 38 years, and intense heat is scorching Malaysia. Nations south of the equator are likewise suffering from a sweltering summer. Record heat and drought in Australia is causing massive crop loss, and "fire authorities are expecting the state's worst fire conditions in five years." A heat wave in Brazil has killed 32 people, and South Africa is experiencing a "crippling bout of heat and humidity." Until action is taken to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, the destruction of our climate will continue, just as scientists have been warning for decades.