Can We Talk About the Weather?
El Niño, global warming, and wacky conditions-something funny's going on
That has led to a debilitating lack of winter tourism in the Alps. But it's been a boon for Colorado resorts, some of which have picked up their advertising in Europe. Overall, though, warmer winters probably mean little for the economy in the short run. Retailers of cold-weather clothes suffer, but people tend to buy more cars and spend more money on entertainment. Low heating bills mean fatter wallets.
The unusually warm weather coincides with two major signals from the Bush administration acknowledging global warming. The first, in December, was a proposal to place polar bears on the endangered species list because of melting Arctic ice. The second was last week's measured but nonetheless significant statement by NOAA identifying a "long-term warming trend, which has been linked to increases in greenhouse gases."
In the short term, expect this weird weather to stick around. Meteorologists say this El Niño will last until mid- to late spring. But separating El Niño from the effects of global warming is a less certain business. "We know global warming is occurring," Feltgen says. "However, we know much less about global warming's impact on El Niño conditions." Some scientists suspect global warming raises not only the intensity of El Niño events but also the frequency, meaning that winters like this one could become more common. While cold weather and snow will still exist-even in El Niño years, freezing weather can occur across much of the country-climatologists say that trends show there's no reason to think that 2007 will be any cooler than 2006. January might be the new April, after all.
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