The Political Climate: an ongoing commentary on the NH Primary and Climate Change

There is a nice tension between the attitudes of meteorologists and climate scientists when it comes to the mention of global warming in reference to weather events. 

The weathermen pretty much don’t like it when people make that connection.  And that is certainly understandable: weather is not climate.

But the recent attempts to foist the unnaturally warm weather in the Northeast off on the poor Babe of the southern Pacific, El Nino (not so little anymore, apparently) is getting irksome.  Yes, the recurrent area of warm water that oscillates back and forth from Chile toward Indonesia clearly affects our weather (and by “our” I mean pretty much everyone, including those shovelers and stranded travelers in Colorado).

But data–that annoying collection of reality checks upon which scientists rely–indicates that El Nino and warm winters in the Northeast do not, in fact, correlate.  Quite the opposite, as the chart below (courtesy of Dr. Cameron Wake at the UNH Climate Research Center) illustrates: El Nino (”warm events”) and La Nina (”cold events”) do not correlate with significant differences in winter temperatures across the Northeast.

Rather, the main driver of wintertime climate in the northeast, according to the climate scientists is the North Atlantic Oscillation.  When it is stuck in a positive mode (as it has been for the last couple of months) it blocks the influx of Arctic air and results in warmer temperatures.

This does not exactly counter an NWS meteorologists claim that “El Nino has absolutely nothing to do with global warming” but it does indicate that El Nino may have little to do with why it’s been so ridiculously warm around here.

Thankfully not everyone is turning to El Nino.  Peter N. Spotts, staff environmental writer of The Christian Science Monitor, got it right in this story on January 4th.  Spotts writes:

 “Is global warming responsible?  Researchers aren’t sure.  They point instead to a seesaw climate pattern that occurs over the North Atlantic, called the North Atlantic Oscillation or NOA.  Less publicly known than El Nino and certainly less understood, the NAO is getting increasing attention from scientists…

Unlike El Nino, the phenomenon’s reach isn’t fully globe-circling.  But particularly in the winter months, the NAO “is just as important for weather and climate across much of the northern hemisphere,” says James Hurrell, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.”

Of course, we can’t help noting he’s quoting an atmospheric scientist, not a meteorologist!

Sen. John McCain’s NH campaign manager Jim Martin settled into a new apartment in downtown Manchester earlier this week.  This new locale will put him near McCain’s office headquarters which will likely be at Manchester’s Waumbec Mill. 

Mitt Romney is also gearing up for the presidential race.  On Wednesday he filed for a Presidential exploratory committee, but announced that any final decisions about a run won’t be made until after the State of the Union address.  (Read all political gossip here in the Union Leader’s “Granite Status.”)

Yesterday President Bush met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  The timing of the meeting was meant to signal Germany’s intent to strengthen the European Union’s relationship with the United States.  After private talks Merkel and Bush announced in a news conference shared national priorities–Middle East peace and combating global warming.  Bush said, “we talked about climate change, and I assured the chancellor I’m committed to promoting new technologies that will promote energy efficiency and do a better job protecting the environment.”  Hmm…we’ll believe it when we see it…(Read the entire story here from CNN.com.)

Yesterday Foster’s Daily Democrat ran “Balmy air feels good, but is a bad sign of global warming trend.”  The article points out an obvious trend that any Granite Stater who has stepped out of the house in the last month should know–it’s been incredibly warm this winter.  David Brown, state climatologist, says “we’ve seen a steady upward trend in temperature, particularly in the winter season.  I think what we are seeing in New England is the regional signature of the global climate change.  There’s no question that that’s a piece of it.”  And the weekend forecast for January 6th: mid 50s.

Despite the efforts (and a lot of funding–an estimated $16 million between 1998 and 2005) of Exxonmobil Corp. to mislead the public about the threats of global warming, rising temperatures worldwide seem to send a stronger message that no one has to pay for. 

Today The New York Times published “2007 Predicted to be World’s Warmest year.”  Britain’s Meteorological Office announced that global warming and the El Nino weather phenomenon will likely impact global temperatures in 2007, creating overall average record temperatures.  The Meteorological Office reports a 60% probability that this year will be warmer than 1998, the current record holder.  Katie Hopkins, a scientist for the Meteorological Office says “this new information represents another warning that climate change is happening around the world.”

Yesterday the Union of Concerned Scientists charged the ExxonMobil Corp. with donating money to various ideological groups in an attempt to “mislead the public by discrediting the science behind global warming.”  Britain’s Royal Society made a similar claim last September in a letter to Exxonmobil asking them to stop support for groups that “misrepresented the science of climate change.”  Exxonmobil has countered these charges, saying this is not their intention but “there is value in the debate they prompt if it can lead to better informed and more optimal public policy decisions.”  But according to James McCarthy, a professor at Harvard University, this co called “debate” that Exxonmobil talks about is only an “illusion of a vigorous debate” about global warming that the company has been trying to foster all along.  (Read the entire story in the Boston Globe here.)

But new policies in Washington might tighten Exxonmobil’s pocket book.  According to this article in the Washington Post House Democrats are “crafting an energy package that would roll back billions of dollars worth of oil drilling incentives, raise billions more by boosting federal royalties paid by oil and gas companies’ offshore production, and plow the money into new tax breaks for renewable energy sources.”  The actual logistics of this plan are still up in the air, but the overall concept of a shift is taking shape.  Rhone Resch, president of Solar Energy Industries Association, believes “the Democrats are appropriately shifting money from the 20th-century technologies to the 21st-century industries.”

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone that snowmobile registrations are down so far this season.  We are kind of lacking one of the fundamental ingredients to the sport–snow.  According to this article in the Union Leader, registrations are down by an estimated 10,000 to 15,000.  NH Fish and Game Maj. Tim Acerno says, “I’ve never seen that much of a drop in one year.  Last year, we had about 60,000 registrations” and some years they have as many as 75,000.  Already northern parts of the state are suffering from cancellations over the holiday season.  The Carbon Coalition recently released a report, “Winter Recreation, Global Warming and New Hampshire, ” which researched this problem.  The results of the study are pretty much common sense–”cold snowy winters bring more visitors and generate more economic activity than warm, slushier winters.”  However, this years drop in snowmobile registrations is much more precipitous than the 11% decline that the report estimates.

Today The Washington Post published this article about the “inconvenient controversy” between Laurie David, a producer for “An Inconvenient Truth,” and the National Science Teacher Association (NSTA) (TPC reported on this story here).  Global warming has not yet become a formalized part of the science curriculum around the country, even though Gerry Wheeler, executive director of the NSTA, puts it on the top of his “must-teach” list along with HIV/AIDS education. 

Last week National Public Radio’s, “Living on Earth” interviewed both David and Wheeler.   David explained her outrage over the NSTA’s deferment of her generous offer of 50,000 free copies of “An Inconvenient Truth:” “what I was hoping to accomplish is to get this movie…into schools so school kids can see the truth about what’s happening with this issue.”  Although spreading global warming information is a concern of Wheeler’s he explained, “the reason we turned it down is because of our endorsement policy or our non-endorsement policy.  The NSTA does not endorse any materials produced by any group outside of the NSTA.”  David didn’t accept this as a reasonable excuse.  Listen to the heated interview here.

The Campus Climate Challenge isn’t waiting around for organizations like the NSTA to begin incorporating climate change into science curriculums.  Instead it’s calling for a youth movement across the country, “Rising to the Challenge,” which is asking students from January 29th to February 2nd to “speak to their campus leaders and our new congress about how the decisions they make today directly affect the world we inherit tomorrow.”