It’s Climate Change, Not Global Warming

            I, for one, am so tired of people who, when it gets extremely cold, complain that global warming is nonsense. Someone used this term initially and, unfortunately, it stuck, no matter how often it was corrected by scientists and meteorologists everywhere.

            There was another one of these fools in the ‘Voice of the People’ section in the New York Daily News on February 18. This is someone who does know the difference between climate and weather. The latter is in one specific location is short-lived. The latter is over a large area and is of a more permanent duration.

            Global warming indicates that the temperature around the world is rising and it cannot and does not get cold anywhere. This is absolute nonsense.

            Without espousing the entire theory, climate change indicates that the climate in large areas around the world changes over time. If it’s humid and temperate in a large area at a certain time, it can become more of a hot desert if the climate changes. Temperatures in some areas of the world will rise over time and in others it will decrease. Since records have been kept since the 1800’s, the average global temperature has steadily risen since the 1990’s, and it’s going higher every year.

At the moment it is extremely cold in the northeast of the United States where we have to deal with the Siberian Express, a weather pattern that originates in Siberia and comes through along with high winds, drastically dropping the wind chill. If you check the temperatures throughout the Northern Hemisphere for January 2015, you would discover that  the northeast United States, Greenland and north central Asia are the only places that are very cold. All other places are above normal and much of Asia is way above normal. This is a signal of a change in climate.

            Anyone can research this theory in more detail anywhere on the internet. I strongly suggest that everyone does research it.

The Blizzard that Wasn’t

            So many people are complaining that it was a waste of time to close the city for the snowstorm that hit the northeast on January 27.

            These people suffer from a common malady – 20/20 hindsight. These people do not understand what it takes to determine what the weather will be based on multiple sources of data. Anything can change a forecast.

            The National Weather Service, based on the information available, said that New York City would get 12 to 24 inches of snow. There were no exceptions of which I know.

            Following the predictions from the blizzard warning, and from past experience, the proper thing to do was close the city to traffic, get people to stay off the streets, and to shut down all trains and buses.

But something very interesting occurred. There was a ridge of drier air from about New York City to the west. All the bands of snow headed west hit the dry ridge and practically petered out. No forecaster saw this happening. Central Park got 9.8 inches. Just 30 miles to the east, Long Island got 2 feet or more. That was close.

            From all the indicators, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio did the right thing. It is always better to play safe, especially when it comes to the lives of millions of people. The worst thing to do was leave everything running, have the storm hit as conjectured, and let millions get stranded in feet of snow with no way to get around.

            No one should be complaining that the city was closed down. They should be grateful that the governor and mayor did what had to be done to protect them.