Weather: Cloudy With a Chance of Crazy

By Catherine Crawford 

“This weather’s weird.”

I say those three words on a boorishly regular basis. I wish I didn’t, both because I hate repeating myself and because there’s always an ominous undertone attached.

Just before Christmas, CNN described the weather across the United States as a “maddening mix” of “ice storms, snow, flooding, thunderstorms, tornadoes and record-setting warmth.”

Weird, right?

Maybe not, according to a recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. The article suggests that my reaction has as much, if not more, to do with politics than outrageous weather: “This being 2014, when everything devolves to politics, any spell of cold or heat inevitably leads to explanations of climate change. The conservative websites are having a good time pointing to the cold temps as a repudiation of global-warming models, while the global-warming crowd says even the cold is proof of . . . climate change.”

The piece goes on to argue that the extreme storms and cold climes being experienced across the country are simply a result of...winter.

The Wall Street Journal isn’t alone in its questioning of global warming based on the current cold snap here, as noted by Peter Moskowitz on Al Jazeera America’s website.

According to Moskowitz, however, “those who think cold weather disproves climate change may be ignoring a solid and ever-increasing body of evidence.” Furthermore, he writes: “Scientists warn that as every country in the world starts to grapple with the effects of climate change, the current confusion surrounding the science could have dire consequences.”

Where I live, it's forecasted that the weather will fluctuate 49 degrees today. To me, that’s weird.

Do you think recent weather extremes are a result of global warming? Tell us in the comments or in a blog post.